
Class f Z ,. 1 ,^^ 



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COPlfRIGHT DEPOSm 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 











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W/MBlt*A'^ 



Charleston is the last stronghold of a unified American upper class; the last remain- 
ing American city in which Madeira and Port and noblesse oblige are fully 
and widely understood, and are employed according to the best traditions 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 



A SECOND TRIP "ABROAD AT HOME" BY 



JULIAN STREET 



WITH PICTORIAL SIDELIGHTS 

BY 

WALLACE MORGAN 




NEW YORK 
THE CENTURY CO. 

1917 






Copyright, i()i7, by 
The Century Co. 

Copyright, 1916, 1917, by 
P. F. Collier & Son, Inc. 

Published, November, igi"^ 



NOV 17 1917 



©CI,A479104 



TO MY AUNT 
AND SECOND MOTHER 

JULIA ROSS LOW 



FOREWORD 

Though much has been written of the South, it 
seems to me that this part of our country is less under- 
stood than any other part. Certainly the South, itself, 
feels that this is true. Its relationship to the North 
makes me think of nothing so much as that of a pretty, 
sensitive wife, to a big, strong, amiable, if somewhat 
thick-skinned husband. These two had one great 
quarrel which nearly resulted in divorce. He thought 
her headstrong; she thought him overbearing. The 
quarrel made her ill ; she has been for some time recover- 
ing. But though they have settled their difficulties and 
are living again in amity together, and though he, man- 
like, has half forgotten that they ever quarreled at all, 
now that peace reigns in the house again, she has not 
forgotten. There still lingers in her mind the feeling 
that he never really understood her, that he never un- 
derstood her problems and her struggles, and that he 
never will. And it seems to me further that, as is 
usually the case with wives who consider themselves mis- 
understood, the fault is partly, but by no means alto- 
gether, hers. He, upon one hand, is inclined to pass the 
matter off with a : "There, there ! It 's all over now. 
Just be good and forget it !" while she, in the depths of 
her heart, retains a little bit of wistfulness, a little 

vii 



FOREWORD 

wounded feeling, which causes her to say to herself: 
'Thank God our home was not broken up, but — I wish 
that he could be a little more considerate, sometimes, in 
view of all that I have suffered." 

For my part, I am the humble but devoted friend of 
the family. Having known him first, having been from 
boyhood his companion, I may perhaps have sym- 
pathized with him in the beginning. But since I have 
come to know her, too, that is no longer so. And I 
do think I know her — proud, sensitive, high-strung, 
generous, captivating beauty that she is! Moreover, 
after the fashion of many another ''friend of the 
family," I have fallen in love with her. Loving her 
from afar, I send her as a nosegay these chapters gath- 
ered in her own gardens. If some of the flowers are of 
a kind for which she does not care, if some have thorns, 
even if some are only weeds, I pray her to remember 
that from what was growing in her gardens I was forced 
to make my choice, and to believe that, whatever the de- 
fects of my bouquet, it is meant to be a bunch of roses. 

J. s. 

October i, igi"^. 



vm 



The Author makes his grateful acknowledgments to 
the old friends and the new ones who assisted him upon 
this journey. And once more he desires to express his 
gratitude to the friend and fellow-traveler whose illus- 
trations are far from being his only contribution to this 
volume. 

-J. s. 
New York, October, 191 7. 



CONTENTS 

THE BORDERLAND 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES J 

II A BALTIMORE EVENING I3 

III WHERE THE CLIMATES MEET 2" 

IV TRIUMPHANT DEFEAT 38 

V TERRAPIN AND THINGS 44 

VI DOUGHOREGAN MANOR AND THE CARROLLS 53 

VII A RARE OLD TOWN 69 

VIII WE MEET THE HAMPTON GHOST 80 

IX ARE WE STANDARDIZED? 89 

X harper's ferry AND JOHN BROWN ... 97 

XI THE VIRGINIAS AND THE WASHINGTONS IO5 

XII I RIDE A HORSE 117 

XIII INTO THE OLD DOMINION I36 

XIV CHARLOTTESVILLE AND MONTICELLO 1 50 

XV THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 159 

XVI FOX-HUNTING IN VIRGINIA 169 

XVII "a CERTAIN PARTY" 186 

XVIII THE LEGACY OF HATE 193 

XIX "YOU-ALL" and OTHER SECTIONAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS . . . 203 

XX IDIOMS AND ARISTOCRACY 2I4 

XXI THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL 222 

XXII RANDOM RICHMOND NOTES 233 

XXIII JEDGE CRUTCHFIELd's COT 242 

XXIV NORFOLK AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD 248 

XXV COLONEL TAYLOR AND GENERAL LEE 258 

THE HEART OF THE SOUTH 

XXVI RALEIGH AND JOSEPHUS DANIELS 273 

XXVII ITEMS FROM "tHE OLD NORTH STATe" 28; 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXVIII UNDER ST. MICHAEl's CHIMES 296 

XXIX HISTORY AND ARISTOCRACY 3^2 

XXX POLITICS, A NEWSPAPER. AND ST. CECILIA 326 

XXXI "gULLA" and the back COUNTRY 338 

XXXII OUT OF THE PAST 349 

XXXIII ALIVE ATLANTA 356 

XXXIV GEORGIA JOURNALISM 369 

XXXV SOME ATLANTA INSTITUTIONS 384 

XXXVl A BIT OF RURAL GEORGIA 392 

XXXVII A YOUNG METROPOLIS "40^ 

XXXVIII BUSY BIRMINGHAM 417 

XXXIX AN ALLEGORY OF ACHIEVEMENT 426 

XL THE ROAD TO ARCADY 44O 

XLI A MISSISSIPPI TOWN 447 

XLII OLD TALES AND A NEW GAME 458 

XLIII OUT OF THE LONG AGO 467 

XLIV THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM 474 

XLV VICKSBURG OLD AND NEW 482 

XLVI SHREDS AND PATCHES 494 

XLVII THE BAFFLING MISSISSIPPI 5OO 

XLVIII OLD RIVER DAYS S08 

XLIX WHAT MEMPHIS HAS ENDURED S18 

L MODERN MEMPHIS 535 

FARTHEST SOUTH 

LI BEAUTIFUL SAVANNAH 553 

LII MISS "JAX" AND SOME FLORIDA GOSSIP 572 

LIII PASSIONATE PALM BEACH 579 

LIV ASSORTED AND RESORTED FLORIDA 595 

LV A DAY IN MONTGOMERY 603 

LVI THE CITY OF THE CREOLE 619 

LVII HISTORY, THE CREOLE, AND HIS DUELS 629 

LVIII FROM ANTIQUES TO PIRATES 648 

LIX ANTOINe'S AND MARDI GRAS 663 

LX FINALE 67s 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

Charleston is the last stronghold of a unified American upper class; the 
last remaining American city in which Madeira and Port and noblesse 
oblige are fully and widely understood, and are employed according 
to the best traditions Frontispiece 

"Railroad tickets!" said the baggageman with exaggerated patience . 8 

Can most travellers, I wonder, enjoy as I do a solitary walk, by night, 

through the mysterious streets of a strange city? I7> 

Coming out of my slumber with the curious and impleasant sense of 

being stared at, I found his eyes fixed upon me 24 • 

Mount Vernon Place is the centre of Baltimore 32 

If she is shopping for a dinner party, she may order the costly and aris- 
tocratic diamond-back terrapin, sacred in Baltimore as is the Sacred 
Cod in Boston 48 " 

Doughoregan Manor — the house was a buff-colored brick .... 65'' 

I began to realize that there was no one coming 80 

Harper's Ferry is an entrancing old town ; a drowsy place piled up beau- 
tifully yet carelessly upon terraced roads clinging to steep hillsides 100' 

"What's the matter with him?" I asked, stopping 117 

When I came down, dressed for riding, my companion was making a 
drawing; the four young ladies were with him, none of them in riding 
habits 124- 

Claymont Court is one of the old Washington houses 132 

Chatham, the old Fitzhugh house, now the residence of Mark Sullivan 148' 

Monticello stands on a lofty hilltop, with vistas, between trees of neigh- 
boring valleys, hills, and mountains 157'^ 

Like Venice, the University of Virginia should first be seen by moon- 

Hght 168 

One party was stationed on the top of an old-time mail-coach, bearing 

the significant initials "F. F. V." 180 

The Piedmont Hunt Race Meet 189-- 

The Southern negro is the world's peasant supreme 200 " 

xiii 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

The Country Club of Virginia, out to the west of Richmond .... 216/ 

y 
Judge Crutchfield 228 

Negro women squatting upon boxes in old shadowy lofts stem the to- 
bacco leaves 237. 

The Judge: "What did he do, Mandy?" 244 -^ 

Some genuine old-time New York ferryboats help to complete the illu- 
sion that Norfolk is New York 253-^ 

"The Southern statesman who serves his section best, serves his country 

best" 280- 

St. Philip 'sis the more beautiful for the open space before it .... 300 

Opposite St. Philip's, a perfect example of the rude architecture of an 

old French village 3^5 ' 

In the doorway and gates of the Smyth house, in Legare Street, I was 

struck with a Venetian suggestion 316' 

Nor is the Charleston background a mere arras of recollection . . . 320-^ 

Charleston has a stronger, deeper-rooted city entity than all the cities 

of the Middle West rolled into one 328 ^ 

The interior is the oldest looking thing in the United States — Goose 

Creek Church 344^ 

A reminder of the Chicago River — Atlanta 353*^ 

With the whole INIetropolitan Orchestra playing dance music all night 

long 368^ 

The office buildings are city office buildings, and are sufficiently numer- 
ous to look very much at home 37^'' 

The negro roof-garden, Odd Fellows' Building, Atlanta 385"^ 

I was never so conscious, as at the time of our visit to the Burge Planta- 
tion, of the superlative soft sweetness of the spring 396' 

The planters cease their work 400 ■ 

Birmingham — the thin veil of smoke from far-off iron furnaces softens 

the city's serrated outlines 408 

Birmingham practices vmremittingly the pestilential habit of "cutting 

in" at dances 424 ''^ 

Gigantic movements and mutations, Niagara-like noises, great bursts 

of flame like falling fragments from the sun 437'^ 

A shaggy, unshaven, rawboned man, gray-haired and coUarless, sat near 

the window 444 

Gaze upon the character called Daniel Voorhees Pike! 45^ ' 

xiv 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

The houses were full of the suggestion of an easy-going home life and an 

informal hospitality 465 

Her hands looked very white and small against his dark coat . . . 480 ' 

As water flows down the hills of Vicksburg to the river, so the visitor's 
thoughts flow down to the great spectacular, mischievous, domi- 
nating stream 485 

Over the tenement roofs one catches sight of sundry other buildings of 

a more self-respecting character 492 

Vicksburg negroes 497 

On some of the boats negro fish-markets are conducted 504 

The old Klein house 512 

Citizens go at midday to the square 520 

Hanging in the air above the middle of the stream 536 

These small parks give Savannah the quality which differentiates it 

from all other American cities 556' 

The Thomas house, in Franklin Square 561 

You will see them having tea, and dancing under the palm fronds of 

the cocoanut grove 576 

Cocktail hour at The Breakers 581 

Nowhere is the sand more like a deep warm dust of yellow gold . . . 588' 

The couples on the platform were " ragging " 600 

Harness held together by that especial Providence which watches over 

negro mending 613 

It was a very jolly fair 6i6- 

The mysterious old Absinthe House, founded 1799 620 

St. Anthony's Garden 632^ 

Courtyard of the old Orleans Hotel 641' 

The little lady who sits behind the desk 656 

The lights are always lowered at Antoine's when the spectacular Cafe 

Boulot Diabolique is served 664 

Passing between the brilliantly illuminated buildings, the Mardi Gras 
parades are glorious sights for children from eight to eighty years of 

age 672 



THE BORDERLAND 



O magnet-South ! O glistening, perfumed South ! 
O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love ! good and evil ! 
O all dear to me ! 

Walt Whitman. 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

CHAPTER I 
ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES 

On journeys through the States we start, 

. . . We willing learners of all, teachers of all, lovers of all. 

We dwell a while in every city and town . . . 

— Walt Whitman. 

HAD my companion and I never crossed the con- 
tinent together, had we never gone "abroad at 
home," I might have curbed my impatience at 
the beginning of our second voyage. But from the 
time we returned from our first journey, after hav- 
ing spent some months in trying, as some one put it, 
to ''discover America," I felt the gnawings of excited 
appetite. The vast sweep of the country continually 
suggested to me some great delectable repast: a ban- 
quet spread for a hundred million guests; and having 
discovered myself unable, in the time first allotted, to de- 
vour more than part of it — a strip across the table, as 
it were, stretching from New York on one side to San 
Francisco on the other — I have hungered impatiently 
for more. Indeed, to be quite honest, I should like to 
try to eat it all. 

3 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Months before our actual departure for the South 
the day for leaving was appointed ; days before we fixed 
upon our train ; hours before I bought my ticket. And 
then, when my trunks had left the house, when my taxi- 
cab was ordered and my faithful battered suitcase 
stood packed to bulging in the hall, my companion, the 
Illustrator, telephoned to say that certain drawings he 
must finish before leaving were not done, that he would 
be unable to go with me that afternoon, as planned, but 
must wait until the midnight train. 

Had the first leap been a long one I should have waited 
for him, but the distance from New York to the other 
side of Mason and Dixon's Line is short, and I knew 
that he would join me on the threshold of the South next 
morning. Therefore I told him I would leave that after- 
noon as originally proposed, and gave him, in excuse, 
every reason I could think of, save the real one : namely, 
my impatience. I told him that I wished to make the 
initial trip by day to avoid the discomforts of the sleep- 
ing car, that I had engaged hotel accommodations for the 
night by wire, that friends were coming down to see me 
off. 

Nor were these arguments without truth. I be- 
lieve in telling the truth. The truth is good enough for 
any one at any time — except, perhaps, when there is a 
point to be carried, and even then some vestige of it 
should, if convenient, be preserved. Thus, for example, 
it is quite true that I prefer the conversation of my fel- 
low travelers, dull though it may be, to the stertorous 

4 



ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES 

sounds they make by night; so, too, if I had not tele- 
graphed for rooms, it was merely because I had for- 
gotten to — and that I remedied immediately ; while as to 
the statement that friends were to see me off, that was 
absolutely and literally accurate. Friends had, indeed, 
signified their purpose to meet me at the station for last 
farewells, and had, furthermore, remarked upon the very 
slight show of enthusiasm with which I heard the news. 

The fact is, I do not like to be seen off. Least of all, 
do I like to be seen off by those who are dear to me. 
If the thing must be done, I prefer it to be done by 
strangers — committees from chambers of commerce and 
the like, who have no interest in me save the hope that I 
will live to write agreeably of their city — of the civic 
center, the fertilizer works, and the charming new abat- 
toir. Seeing me off for the most practical of reasons, 
such gentlemen are invariably efficient. They provide 
an equipage, and there have even been times when, in 
the final hurried moments, they have helped me to jam 
the last things into my trunks and bags. One of them 
politely takes my suitcase, another kindly checks my 
baggage, and all in order that a third, who is usually the 
secretary of the chamber of commerce, may regale me 
with inspiring statistics concerning the population of 
"our city," the seating capacity of the auditorium, the 
number of banks, the amount of their clearings, and the 
quantity of belt buckles annually manufactured. When 
the train is ready we exchange polite expressions of re- 
gret at parting: expressions reminiscent of those little 

5 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

speeches which the King of England and the Emperor 
of Germany used to make at parting in the old days be- 
fore they found each other out and began dropping 
high explosives on each other's roofs. 

Such a committee, feeling no emotion (except perhaps 
relief) at seeing me depart, may be useful. Not so with 
friends and loved ones. Useful as they may be in the 
great crises of life, they are but disturbing elements in 
the small ones. Those who would die for us seldom 
check our trunks. 

By this I do not mean to imply that either of the two 
delightful creatures who came to the Pennsylvania 
Terminal to bid me good-by would die for me. That 
one has lived for me and that both attempt to regulate 
my conduct is more than enough. Hardly had I alighted 
from my taxicab, hardly had the redcap seized my suit- 
case, when, with sweet smiles and a twinkling of daintily 
shod feet, they came. Fancy their having arrived ahead 
of me ! Fancy their having come like a pair of angels 
through the rain to see me off ! Enough to turn a man's 
head ! It did turn mine ; and I noticed that, as they ap- 
proached, the heads of other men were turning too. 

Flattered to befuddlement, I greeted them and started 
with them automatically in the direction of the con- 
course, forgetting entirely the driver of my taxicab, who, 
however, took in the situation and set up a great shout — 
whereat I returned hastily and overpaid him. 

This accomplished, I rejoined my companions and, 
with a radiant dark-haired girl at one elbow and a blonde, 

6 



ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES 

equally delectable, at the other, moved across the con- 
course. 

How gay they were as we strolled along ! How amus- 
ing were their prophecies of adventures destined to be- 
fall me in the South. Small wonder that I took no 
thought of whither I was going. 

Presently, having reached the wall at the other side 
of the great vaulted chamber, we stopped. 

** Which train, boss?" asked the porter who had meekly 
followed. 

Train? I had forgotten about trains. The mention 
of the subject distracted my attention for the moment 
from the Loreleien, stirred my drugged sense of duty, 
and reminded me that I had trunks to check. 

My suggestion that I leave them briefly for this pur- 
pose was lightly brushed aside. 

"Oh, no !" they cried. "We shall go with you." 

I gave in at once — one always does with them — and in- 
quired of the porter the location of the baggage room. 
He looked somewhat fatigued as he replied : 

"It 's away back there where we come from, boss." 

It was a long walk; in a garden, with no train to 
catch, it would have been delightful. 

"Got your tickets?" suggested the porter as we passed 
the row of grilled windows. He had evidently con- 
cluded that I was irresponsible. 

As I had them, we continued on our way, and pres- 
ently achieved the baggage room, where they stood talk- 
ing and laughing, telling me of the morning's shopping 

7 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

expedition — hat-hunting, they called it — in the rain. I 
fancy that we might have been there yet had not a bag- 
gageman, perhaps divining that I had become a little bit 
distrait and that I had business to transact, rapped 
smartly on the iron counter with his punch and de- 
manded : 

''Baggage checked?" 

Turning, not without reluctance, from a pair of violet 
eyes and a pair of the most mysterious gray, I began 
to fumble in my pockets for the claim checks. 

"How long shall you stay in Baltimore?" asked the 
girl with the gray eyes. 

"Yes, indeed!" I answered, still searching for the 
checks. 

"That does n't make sense," remarked the blue-eyed 
girl as I found the checks and handed them to the bag- 
gageman. "She asked how long you 'd stay in Balti- 
more, and you said: 'Yes, indeed.' " 

"About a week I meant to say." 

"Oh, I don't believe a week will be enough," said Gray- 
eyes. 

"We can't stay longer," I declared. "We must keep 
pushing on. There are so many places in the South to 
see." 

"My sister has just been there, and she — " 

"Where to?" demanded the insistent baggageman. 

"Why, Baltimore, of course," I said. Had he paid 
attention to our conversation he might have known. 

8 



ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES 

"You were saying," reminded Violet-eyes, "that your 
sister — ?" 

"She just came home from there, and says that — " 

"Railroad ticket !" said the baggageman with exagger- 
ated patience. 

I began again to feel in various pockets. 

"She says," continued Gray-eyes, "that she never met 
more charming people or had better things to eat. She 
loves the southern accent too." 

I don't know how the tickets got into my upper right 
vest pocket; I never carry tickets there; but that is 
where I found them. 

"Do you like it?" asked the other girl of me. 

"Like what?" 

"Why, the southern accent." 

"Any valuation?" the baggageman demanded. 

"Yes," I answered them both at once. 

"Oh, you dof" cried Violet-eyes, incredulously. 

"Why, yes; I think—" 

"Put down the amount and sign here," the baggage- 
man directed, pushing a slip toward me and placing a 
pencil in my hand. 

I obeyed. The baggageman took the slip and w^nt off 
to a little desk. I judged that he had finished with me 
for the moment. 

"But don't you think," my fair inquisitor continued, 
"that the southern girls pile on the accent awfully, be- 
cause they know it pleases men ?" 

9 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

'Terhaps," I said. "But then, what better reason 
could they have for doing so?" 

"Listen to that!" she cried to her companion. "Did 
you ever hear such egotism?" 

"He 's nothing but a man," said Gray-eyes scornfully. 
"I would n't be a man for — " 

"A dollar and eighty-five cents," declared the baggage- 
man. 

I paid him. 

"I wouldn't be a man for anything!" my fair friend 
finished as we started to move off. 

"I would n't have you one," I told her, opening the 
concourse door. 

''Hay!" shouted the baggageman. "Here's your 
ticket and your checks !" 

I returned, took them, and put them in my pocket. 
Again we proceeded upon our way. I was glad to leave 
the baggageman. 

This time the porter meant to take no chances. 

"What train, boss?" he asked. 

"The Congressional Limited." 

"You got jus' four minutes." 

"Goodness !" cried Gray-eyes. 

"I thought," said Violet-eyes as we accelerated our 
pace, "that you prided yourself on always having time 
to spare?" 

"Usually I do," I answered, "but in this case — " 

"What car?" the porter interrupted tactfully. 

Again I felt for my tickets. This time they were in 

lO 



ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES 
my change pocket. I can't imagine how I came to put 
them there. 

"But in this case — whatf" The violet eyes looked 
threatening as their owner put the question. 

"Seat seven, car three," I told the porter firmly as we 
approached the gate. Then, turning to my dangerous 
and lovely cross-examiner: 'Tn this case I am unfor- 
tunate, for there is barely time to say good-by." 

There are several reasons why I don't believe in rail- 
way station kisses. Kisses given in public are at best 
but skimpy little things, suggesting the swift peck of a 
robin at a peach, whereas it is truer of kissing than of 
many other forms of industry that what is worth doing 
at all is worth doing well. Yet I knew that one of these 
enchantresses expected to be kissed, and that the other 
very definitely did n't. Therefore I kissed them both. 
Then I bolted toward the gate. 
"Tickets !" demanded the gateman, stopping me. 
At last I found them in the inside pocket of my over- 
coat. I don't know how they got there. I never carry 
tickets in that pocket. 

As the train began to move I looked at my watch and, 
discovering it to be three minutes fast, set it right. 
That is the sort of train the Congressional Limited is. 
A moment later we were roaring through the black- 
ness of the Hudson River tunnel. 

There is something fine in the abruptness of the es- 
cape from New York City by the Pennsylvania Rail- 
r>s^d. From the time you enter the station you are^s 



II 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

good as gone. There is no progress between the city's 
tenements, with untidy bedding airing in some windows 
and fat old slatterns leaning out from others to survey 
the sordidness and squalor of the streets below. A swift 
plunge into darkness, some thundering moments, and 
your train glides out upon the wide wastes of the New 
Jersey meadows. The city is gone. You are even in 
another State. Far, far behind, bathed in glimmering 
haze which gives them the appearance of palaces in a 
mirage, you may see the tops of New York's towering 
sky-scrapers, dwarfed yet beautified by distance. Out- 
side the wide car window the advertising sign-boards 
pass to the rear in steady parade, shrieking in strong 
color of whiskies, tobaccos, pills, chewing gums, cough 
drops, flours, hams, hotels, soaps, socks, and shows. 



12 



CHAPTER II 
A BALTIMORE EVENING 

I felt her presence by its spell of might, 

Stoop o'er me from above ; 
The calm, majestic presence of the night, 

As of the one I love. 

— Longfellow. 

BEFORE I went to Baltimore I had but two 
definite impressions connected with the place: 
the first was of a tunnel, filled with coal gas, 
through which trains pass beneath the city ; the second 
was that when a southbound train left Baltimore the 
time had come to think of cleaning up, preparatory to 
reaching Washington. 

Arriving at Baltimore after dark, one gathers an im- 
pression of an adequate though not impressive Union 
Station from which one emerges to a district of good 
asphalted streets, the main ones wide and well lighted. 
The Baltimore street lamps are large and very brilliant 
single globes, mounted upon the tops of substantial 
metal columns. I do not remember having seen lamps 
of the same pattern in any other city. It is a good pat- 
tern, but there is one thing about it which is not good 
at all, and that is the way the street names are lettered 
upon the sides of the globes. Though the lettering is 

13 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

not large, it is large enough to be read easily in the day- 
time against the globe's white surface, but to try to 
read it at night is like trying to read some little legend 
printed upon a blinding noon-day sun. I noticed this 
particularly because I spent my first evening in wan- 
dering alone about the streets of Baltimore, and wished 
to keep track of my route in order that I might the more 
readily find my way back to the hotel. 

Can most travelers, I wonder, enjoy as I do a soli- 
tary walk, by night, through the mysterious streets of 
a strange city? Do they feel the same detached )^et 
keen interest in unfamiliar highways, homes, and hu- 
man beings, the same sense of being a wanderer from 
another world, a "messenger from -Mars," a Harun-al- 
Rashid, or, if not one of these, an imaginative adven- 
turer like Tartarin? Do they thrill at the sight of an 
ill-lighted street leading into a no-man's-land of menac- 
ing dark shadows ; at the promise of a glowing window 
puncturing the blackness here or there ; at the invitation 
of some open doorway behind which unilluminated 
blackness hangs, threatening and tempting? Do they 
rejoice in streets the names of which they have not 
heard before? Do they — as I do — delight in irregu- 
larity: in the curious forms of roofs and spires against 
the sky; in streets which run up hill or down; or which, 
instead of being straight, have jogs in them, or curves, 
or interesting intersections, at which other streets dart 
off from them obliquely, as though in a great hurry to 
get somewhere? Do they love to emerge from a street 

14 



A BALTIMORE EVENING 

which is narrow, dim, and deserted, upon one which is 
wide, bright, and crowded; and do they also Hke to 
leave a brilliant street and dive into the darkness of 
some somber byway? Does a long row of lights lure 
them, block by block, toward distances unknown? Are 
they tempted by the unfamiliar signs on passing street 
cars? Do they yearn to board those cars and be trans- 
ported by them into the mystic caverns of the night? 
And when they see strangers who are evidently going 
somewhere with some special purpose, do they wish to 
follow; to find out where these beings are going, and 
why? Do they wish to trail them, let the trail lead to 
a prize fight, to a church sociable, to a fire, to a fashion- 
able ball, or to the ends of the world ? 

For the traveler who does not know such sensations 
and such impulses as these — who has not at times in- 
dulged in the joy of yielding to an inclination of at least 
mildly fantastic character — I am profoundly sorry. 
The blind themselves are not so blind as those who, see- 
ing with the physical eye, lack the eye of imagination. 

Residence streets like Chase and Biddle, in the blocks 
near where they cross Charles Street, midway on its 
course between the Union Station and Mount Vernon 
Place, are at night, even more than by day, full of the 
suggestion of comfortable and settled domesticity. 
Their brick houses, standing wall to wall and close to 
the sidewalk, speak of honorable age, and, in some 
cases, of a fine and ancient dignity. One fancies 
that in many of these houses the best of old ma- 

15 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

hogany may be found, or, if not that, then at least the 
fairly old and quite creditable furniture of the period 
of the sleigh-back bed, the haircloth-covered rosewood 
sofa, and the tall, narrow mirror between the two front 
windows of the drawing room. 

Through the glass panels of street doors and beneath 
half-drawn window shades the early-evening wayfarer 
may perceive a feeble glow as of illuminating gas turned 
low; but by ten o'clock these lights have begun to dis- 
appear, indicating — or so, at all events, I chose to believe 
— that certain old ladies wearing caps and black silk 
gowns with old lace fichus held in place b}^ ancient 
cameos, have proceeded slowly, rustlingly, upstairs to 
bed, accompanied by their cats. 

At Cathedral Street, a block or two from Charles, 
Biddle Street performs a jog, dashing off at a tangent 
from its former course, while Chase Street not only jogs 
and turns at the corresponding intersection, but does 
so again, where, at the next corner, it meets at once with 
Park Avenue and Berkeley Street. After this it runs 
but a short way and dies, as though exhausted by its 
own contortions. 

Here, in a region of malformed city blocks — some of 
them pentagonal, some irregularly quadrangular, some 
wedge-shaped — Howard Street sets forth upon its way, 
running first southwest as far as Richmond Street, then 
turning south and becoming, by degrees, an important 
thoroughfare. 

Somewhere near the beginning of Howard Street my 

i6 




j^^..^^.„^.V 



Can most travellers, I wonder, enjoy as I do a solitary walk, by night, through 
the mysterious streets of a strange city? 



A BALTIMORE EVENING 

attention was arrested by shadowy forms in a dark 
window: furniture, andirons, chinaware, and weapons 
of obsolete design: unmistakable signs of a shop in 
which antiquities were for sale. After making mental 
note of the location of this shop, I proceeded on my 
way, keeping a sharp lookout for other like establish- 
ments. Nor was I to be disappointed. These birds of 
a feather bear out the truth of the proverb by flocking 
together in Howard Street, as window displays, faintly 
visible, informed me. 

Since we have come naturally to the subject of an- 
tiques, let us pause here, under a convenient lamp-post, 
and discuss the matter further. 

Baltimore — as I found out later — is probably the 
headquarters for the South in this trade. It has at least 
one dealer of Fifth Avenue rank, located on Charles 
Street, and a number of humbler dealers in and near 
Howard Street. Among the latter, two in particular 
interested me. One of these — his name is John A. 
Williar — I have learned to trust. Not only did I make 
some purchases of him while I was in Baltimore, but 
I have even gone so far, since leaving there, as to buy 
from him by mail, accepting his assurance that some 
article which I have not seen is, nevertheless, what I 
want, and that it is "worth the price." 

At the other antique shop which interested me I made 
no purchases. The stock on hand was very large, and 
if those who exhibited it to me made no mistakes in 
differentiating between genuine antiques and copies, 

17 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

the assortment of ancient furniture on sale in that es- 
tabHshment, when I was there, would rank among the 
great collections of the world. 

However, human judgment is not infallible, and 
antique dealers sometimes make mistakes, offering, so 
to speak, "new lamps for old." The eyesight of some 
dealers may not be so good as that of others; or per- 
haps one dealer does not know so well as another the 
difference between, say, an old English Chippendale 
chair and a New York reproduction ; or again, perhaps, 
some dealers may be innocently unaware that there ex- 
ist, in this land of ours, certain large establishments 
wherein are manufactured most extraordinary modern 
copies of the furniture of long ago. I have been in 
one of these manufactories, and have there seen chairs 
of Chippendale and Sheraton design which, though 
fresh from the workman's hands, looked older than 
the originals from which they had been plagiarized; 
also I recall a Jacobean refectory table, the legs of which 
appeared to have been eaten half away by time, but 
which had, in reality, been "antiqued" with a stiff 
wire brush. I mention this because, in my opinion, an- 
tique dealers have a right to know that such factories 
exist. 

What curious differences there are between the cus- 
toms of one trade and those of another. Compare, for 
instance, the dealer in old furniture with the dealer in 
old automobiles. The latter, far from pronouncing a 
machine of which he wishes to dispose "a genuine an- 

i8 



A BALTIMORE EVENING 

tique," will assure you — and not always with a strict 
regard for truth — that it is ''practically as good as 
new." Or compare the seller of antiques with the horse 
dealer. Can you imagine the latter's taking you up to 
some venerable quadruped — let alone a three-year-old — 
and discoursing upon its merits in some such manner as 
the following: 

"This is the oldest and most historic horse that has 
ever come into my possession. Just look at it, sir ! 
The farmer of whom I bought it assured me that it 
was brought over by his ancestors in the Mayfloiver. 
The place where I found it was used as Washington's 
headquarters during the Revolutionary War, and it is 
known that Washington himself frequently sat on this 
very horse. It was a favorite of his. For he was a 
large man and he liked a big, comfortable, deep-seated 
horse, well braced underneath, and having strong arms, 
so that he could tilt it back comfortably against the wall, 
with its front legs off the floor, and — " 

But no! That won't do. It appears I have gotten 
mixed. However, you know what I meant to indicate. 
I merely meant to show that a horse dealer would n't 
talk about a horse as an antique dealer would talk about 
a chair. Even if the horse was once actually ridden by 
the Father of his Country, the dealer won't stress the 
point. You can't get him to admit that a horse has 
reached years of discretion, let alone that it is one hun- 
dred and forty-five years old, or so. It is this differ- 
ence between the horse dealer and the dealer in antiques 

19 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

which keeps us in the dark to-day as to exactly which 
horses Washington rode and which he did n't ride ; al- 
though we know every chair he ever sat in, and every 
bed he ever slept in, and every house he ever stopped 
in, and how he is said to have caught his death of cold. 

Having thus wandered afield, let me now resume my 
nocturnal walk. 

Proceeding down Howard Street to Franklin, I 
judged by the signs I saw about me — the conglomerate 
assortment of theaters, hotels, rathskellers, bars, and 
brilliantly lighted drug stores — that here was the center 
of the city's nighttime life. 

Not far from this corner is the Academy, a very 
spacious and somewhat ancient theater, and although 
the hour was late, into the Academy I went with a ticket 
for standing room. 

Arriving dm'ing an intermission, I had a good view 
of the auditorium. It is reminiscent, in its interior 
"decoration," of the recently torn-down Wallack's Thea- 
ter in New York. The balcony is supported, after the 
old fashion, by posts, and there are boxes the tops of 
which are draped with tasseled curtains. It is the kind 
of theater which suggests traditions, dust, and the possi- 
bility of fire and panic. 

After looking about me for a time, I drew from my 
pocket a pamphlet which I had picked up in the hotel, 
and began to gather information about the "Monumen- 
tal City," as Baltimore sometimes calls itself — thereby 
misusing the word, since "monumental" means, in one 

20 



A BALTIMORE EVENING 

sense, "enduring," and in another '^pertaining to or 
serving as a monument": neither of which ideas it is 
intended, in this instance, to convey. What Baltimore 
intends to indicate is, not that it pertains to monuments, 
but that monuments pertain to it: that it is a city in 
which many monuments have been erected — as is in- 
deed the pleasing fact. My pamphlet informed me that 
the first monument to Columbus and the first to George 
Washington were here put up, and that among the city's 
other monuments was one to Francis Scott Key. I had 
quite forgotten that it was at Baltimore that Key wrote 
the words of "The Star-Spangled Banner," and, as 
others may have done the same, it may be well here to 
recall the details. 

In 1814, after the British had burned a number of 
Government buildings in Washington, including "the 
President's palace" (as one of their officers expressed 
it), they moved on Baltimore, making an attack by land 
at North Point and a naval attack at Fort McHenry on 
Whetstone Point in the estuary of the Patapsco River — 
here practically an arm of Chesapeake Bay. Both at- 
tacks were repulsed. Having gone on the United States 
cartel ship Minden (used by the government in negoti- 
ating exchanges of prisoners) to intercede for his 
friend. Dr. William Beanes, of Upper Marlborough, 
Maryland, who was held captive on a British vessel. Key 
witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry from the 
deck of the Minden, and when he perceived "by the 
daw^n's early light" that the flag still flew over the fort, 

21 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

he was moved to write his famous poem. Later it was 
printed and set to music ; it was first sung in a restaurant 
near the old HolHday Street Theater, but neither the 
restaurant nor the theater exists to-day. It is some- 
times stated that Key was himself a prisoner, during 
the bombardment, on a British warship. That is a mis- 
take. 

By a curious coincidence, only a few minutes after 
my pamphlet had reminded me of the origin of "The 
Star-Spangled Banner" here in Baltimore, I heard the 
air played under circumstances very different from any 
which could have been anticipated by the author of the 
poem, or the composer who set it to music. 

The entertainment at the Academy that night was 
supplied by an elaborate "show" of the burlesque variety 
known as "The Follies," and it so happened that in the 
course of this hodgepodge of color, comedy, scenery, 
song, and female anatomy, there was presented a "num- 
ber" in which actors, garbed and frescoed with intent 
to resemble rulers of various lands, marched successively 
to the front of the stage, preceded in each instance by a 
small but carefully selected guard wearing the fuU-dress- 
imiform of Broadway Amazons. This uniform con- 
sists principally of tights and high-heeled slippers, the 
different nations being indicated, usually, by means of 
color combinations and various types of soldiers' hats. 
No arms are presented save those provided by nature. 

The King of Italy, the Emperor of Austria, the Czar, 
the Mikado, the British Monarch, the President of 

22 



A BALTIMORE EVENING 

France, the King of the Belgians, the Kaiser (for the 
United States had not then entered the war), and, I 
think, some others, put in an appearance, each accom- 
panied by his Paphian escort, his standard, and the ap- 
propriate national air. Apprehending that this sym- 
bolic travesty must, almost inevitably, end in a grand 
orgy of Yankee-Doodleism, I was impelled to flee the 
place before the thing should happen. Yet a horrid 
fascination held me there to watch the working up of 
^'patriotic" sentiment by the old, cheap, stage tricks. 

Presently, of course, the supreme moment came. 
When all the potentates had taken their positions, right 
and left, with their silk-limbed soldiery in double ranks 
behind them, there came into view upstage a squad of 
little white-clad female naval officers, each, according to 
my recollection, carrying the Stars and Stripes. As 
these marched forward and deployed as skirmishers be- 
fore the footlights, the orchestra struck up "The Star- 
Spangled Banner," fortissimo, and with a liberal sound- 
ing of the brasses. Upon this appeared at the back a 
counterfeit President of the United States, guarded on 
either side by a female militia — or were they perhaps 
secret-service agents? — in striking uniforms consisting 
of pink fleshings partially draped with thin black lace. 

As this incongruous parade proceeded to the foot- 
lights, American flags came into evidence, and, though 
I forget whether or not Columbia appeared, I recollect 
that a beautiful young woman, habited in what ap- 
peared to be a light pink union suit of unexceptionable 

23 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

cut and material, appeared above the head of the pseudo- 
chief executive, suspended at the end of a wire. Never 
having heard that it was White House etiquette to hang 
young ladies on wires above the presidential head, I 
consulted my program and thereby learned that this 
young lady represented that species of poultry so pop- 
ular always with the late Secretary of State, Mr. Bryan, 
and so popular also at one time with the President him- 
self : namely, the Dove of Peace. 

The applause was thunderous. At the sound of "The 
Star-Spangled Banner" a few members of the audience 
arose to their feet ; others soon followed — some of them 
apparently with reluctance — until at last the entire house 
had risen. Meanwhile the members of the company 
lined up before the footlights : the mock president smirk- 
ing at the center, the half-clad girls posing, the pink 
young lady dangling above, the band blaring, the Stars 
and Stripes awave. It was a scene, in all, about as con- 
ducive to genuine or creditable national pride as would 
be the scene of a debauch in some fabulous harem. 

The difference between stupidity and satire lies, not 
infrequently, in the intent with which a thing is done. 
Presented without essential change upon the stage of a 
music hall in some foreign land, the scene just described 
would, at that time, when we were playing a timid part 
amongst the nations, have been accepted, not as a glori- 
fication of the United States, but as having a precisely 
opposite significance. It would have been taken for 
burlesque; burlesque upon our country, our President, 

24 



o 






3 






P* 







A BALTIMORE EVENING 

our national spirit, our peace policy, our army, and per- 
haps also upon our women — and insulting burlesque at 
that. 

Some years since, it was found necessary to pass a law 
prohibiting the use of the flag for advertising purposes. 
This law should be amended to protect it also from 
the even more sordid and vulgarizing associations to 
which it is not infrequently submitted on the American 
musical-comedy stage. 

In the morning, before I was awake, my companion 
arrived at the hotel, and, going to his room, opened the 
door connecting it with mine. Coming out of my slum- 
ber with that curious and not altogether pleasant sense 
of being stared at, I found his eyes fixed upon me, and 
noticed immediately about him the air of virtuous su- 
periority which is assumed by all who have risen early, 
whether they have done so by choice or have been shaken 
awake. 

"Hello," I said. "Had breakfast?" 

"No. I thought we could breakfast together if you 
felt like getting up." 

Though the phraseology of this remark was unex- 
ceptionable, I knew what it meant. What it really 
meant was : "Shame on you, lying there so lazy after 
sunup! Look at me, all dressed and ready to begin!" 

I arose at once. 

For all that I don't like to get up early, it recalled old 
times, and was very pleasant, to be away with him again 

25 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

upon our travels; to be in a strange city and a strange 
hotel, preparing to set forth on explorations. For he 
is the best, the most charming, the most observant of 
companions, and also one of the most patient. 

That is one of his greatest qualities — his patience. 
Throughout our other trip he always kept on being pa- 
tient with me, no matter what I did. Many a time 
instead of pushing me down an elevator shaft, drown- 
ing me in my bath, or coming in at night and smother- 
ing me with a pillow, he has merely sighed, dropped 
into a chair, and sat there shaking his head and staring 
at me with a melancholy, ruminative, hopeless expres- 
sion — such an expression as may come into the face of 
a dumb man when he looks at a waiter who has spilled 
an oyster cocktail on him. 

All this is good for me. ' It has a chastening effect. 

Therefore in a spirit happy yet not exuberant, eager 
yet controlled, hopeful yet a little bit afraid, I dressed 
myself hurriedly, breakfasted with him (eating ham 
and eggs because he approves of ham and eggs), and 
after breakfast set out in his society to obtain what — 
despite my walk of the night before — I felt was not 
alone my first real view of Baltimore, but my first 
glimpse over the threshold of the South: into the land 
of aristocracy and hospitality, of mules and mammies, 
of plantations, porticos, and proud, flirtatious belles, of 
colonels, cotton, chivalry, and colored cooking. 



26 



CHAPTER III 
WHERE THE CLIMATES MEET 

Here, where the climates meet, 
That each may make the other's lack complete — 

— Sidney Lanier. 

BECAUSE Baltimore was built, like Rome, on 
seven hills, and because trains run under it in- 
stead of through, the passing traveler sees but 
little of the city, his view from the train window being 
restricted first to a suburban district, then to a black 
tunnel, then to a glimpse upward from the railway 
cut, in which the station stands. These facts, I think, 
combine to leave upon his mind an impression which, 
if not actually unfavorable, is at least negative ; for cer- 
tainly he has obtained no just idea of the metropolis of 
Maryland. 

Let it be declared at the outset, then, that Balti- 
more is not in any sense to be regarded as a suburb 
of Washington. Indeed, considering the two merely as 
cities situated side by side, and eliminating the highly 
specialized features of Washington, Baltimore becomes, 
according to the standards by which American cities 
are usually compared, the more important city of the 
two, being greater both in population and in commerce. 
In this aspect Baltimore may, perhaps, be pictured as the 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

commercial half of Washington. And while Wash- 
ington, as capital of the United States, has certain phys- 
ical and cosmopolitan advantages, not only over Balti- 
more, but over every other city on this continent, it must 
not be forgotten that, upon the other hand, every other 
city has one vast advantage over Washington, namely, 
a comparative freedom from politicians. To be sure. 
Congress did once move over to Baltimore and sit there 
for several weeks, but that was in 1776, when the British 
approached the Delaware in the days before the pork 
barrel was invented. 

As a city Baltimore has marked characteristics. 
Though south of Mason and Dixon's Line, and though 
sometimes referred to as the "metropolis of the South" 
(as is New Orleans also), it is in character neither a city 
entirely northern nor entirely southern, but one which 
partakes of the qualities of both; where, in the words 
of Sidney Lanier, "the climates meet," and where north- 
ern and southern thought and custom meet, as well. 
This has long been the case. Thus, although slaves 
were held in Baltimore before the Civil War, a strong 
abolitionist society was formed there during Washing- 
ton's first Administration, and the sentiment of the city 
was thereafter divided on the slavery question. Thus 
also, while the two candidates of the divided Democratic 
party who ran against Lincoln for the presidency in 
i860 were nominated at Baltimore, Lincoln himself was 
nominated there by the Union-Republican party in 1864. 

Speaking of the blending of North and South in Balti- 

28 



WHERE THE CLIMATES MEET 

more, you will, of course, remember that the Sixth 
Massachusetts Regiment was attacked by a mob as it 
passed through the city on the way to the Civil War. 
The regiment arrived in Baltimore at the old President 
Street Station, which was then the main station of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad, and which, now used as a freight 
station, looks like an old war-time woodcut out of 
Harper's Weekly. It was the custom in those days 
to hitch horses to passenger coaches which were going 
through and draw them across town to the Baltimore & 
Ohio Station; but when it was attempted thus to trans- 
port the northern troops a mob gathered and blocked 
the Pratt Street bridge over Jones's Falls, forcing the 
soldiers to leave the cars and march through Pratt 
Street, along the water front, where they were attacked. 
It is, however, a noteworthy fact that Mayor Brown 
of Baltimore bravely preceded the troops and attempted 
to stop the rioting. A few days later the city was occu- 
pied by northern troops, and the warship Harriet Lane 
anchored at a point off Calvert Street, whence her guns 
commanded the business part of town. After this 
there was no more serious trouble. Moreover, it will 
be remembered that though Maryland was represented 
by regiments in both armies, the State, torn as it 
was by conflicting feeling, nevertheless held to the 
Union. 

A pretty sequel to the historic attack on the Sixth 
Massachusetts occurred when the same regiment passed 
through Baltimore in 1898, on its way to the Spanish 

29 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

War. On this occasion it was "attacked" again in the 
streets of the city, but the missiles thrown, instead of 
paving-stones and bricks, were flowers. 

Continuing the category of contrasts, one may ob- 
serve that while the general appearance of Baltimore 
suggests a northern city rather than a southern one- 
Philadelphia, for instance, rather than Richmond — Balti- 
more society is strongly flavored with the tradition and 
the soft pronunciation of the South; particularly of 
Virginia and the "Eastern Shore." 

So, too, the city's position on the border line is re- 
flected in its handling of the negro. Of American cities, 
Washington has the largest negro population, 94,446, 
New York and New Orleans follow with almost as 
many, and Baltimore comes fourth with 84,749, accord- 
ing to the last census. New York has one negro to 
every fifty-one whites, Philadelphia one to every seven- 
teen whites, Baltimore one to every six, Washington a 
negro to every two and a half whites, and Richmond not 
quite two whites to every negro. But, although Balti- 
more follows southern practice in maintaining separate 
schools for negro children, and in segregating negro 
residences to certain blocks, she follows northern prac- 
tice in casting a considerable negro vote at elections, and 
also in not providing separate seats for negroes in her 
street cars. 

Have you ever noticed how cities sometimes seem 
to have their own especial colors? Paris is white and 
green — even more so, I think, than Washington. Chi- 

30 



WHERE THE CLIMATES MEET 

cago is gray ; so is London usually, though I have seen it 
buff at the beginning of a heavy fog. New York used 
to be a brown sandstone city, but is now turning to one 
of cream-colored brick and tile; Naples is brilliant with 
pink and blue and green and white and yellow ; while as 
for Baltimore, her old houses and her new are, as Baede- 
ker puts it, of ''cheerful red brick" — not always, of 
course, but often enough to establish the color of red 
brick as the city's predominating hue. And with the 
red-brick houses — particularly the older ones — go clean 
white marble steps, on the bottom one of which, at the 
side, may usually be found an old-fashioned iron 
''scraper," doubtless left over from the time (not very 
long ago) when the city pavements had not reached their 
present excellence. 

The color of red brick is not confined to the center of 
the city, but spreads to the suburbs, fashionable and 
unfashionable. At one margin of the town I was shown 
solid blocks of pleasant red-brick houses which, I was 
told, were occupied by workmen and their families, and 
were to be had at a rental of from ten to twenty dol- 
lars a month. For though Baltimore has a lower East 
Side which, like the lower East Side of New York, en- 
compasses the Ghetto and Italian quarter, she has not 
tenements in the New York sense ; one sees no tall, cheap 
flat houses draped with fire escapes and built to make 
herding places for the poor. Many of the houses in 
this section are instead the former homes of fashion- 
ables who have moved to other quarters of the city — 

31 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

handsome old homesteads with here and there a lovely, 
though battered, doorway sadly reminiscent of an earlier 
elegance. So, also, red brick permeates the prosperous 
suburbs, such as Roland Park and Guilford, where, in a 
sweetly rolling country which lends itself to the ar- 
rangement of graceful winding roads and softly con- 
toured plantings, stand quantities of pleasing homes, 
lately built, many of them colonial houses of red brick. 
Indeed, it struck us that the only parts of Baltimore 
in which red brick was not the dominant note were the 
downtown business section and Mount Vernon Place. 

Mount Vernon Place is the center of Baltimore. 
Everything begins there, including Baedeker, who, in 
his little red book, gives it the asterisk of his approval, 
says that it "suggests Paris in its tasteful monuments 
and surrounding buildings," and recommends the view 
from the top of the Washington Monument. 

This monument, standing upon an eminence at the 
point where Charles and Monument Streets would cross 
each other were not their courses interrupted by the 
pleasing parked space of Mount Vernon Place, is a 
gray stone column, surmounted by a figure of Washing- 
ton — or, rather, by the point of a lightning rod under 
which the figure stands. Other monuments are known 
as this monument or that, but when "the monument" 
is spoken of, the Washington Monument is inevitably 
meant. This is quite natural, for it is not only the most 
simple and picturesque old monument in Baltimore, but 
also the largest, the oldest, and the most conspicuous: 

32 



^j 



tti 



w 








,|^.-,jrf--^^- 



J".* 



WHERE THE CLIMATES MEET 

its proud head, rising high in air, having for nearly 
a century dominated the city. One catches glimpses of 
it down this street or that, or sees it from afar over the 
housetops ; and sometimes, when the column is concealed 
from view by intervening buildings, and only the sur- 
mounting statue shows above them, one is struck by a 
sudden apparition of the Father of his Country strolling 
fantastically upon some distant roof. 

Though it may be true that Mount Vernon Place, 
with its symmetrical parked center and its admirable 
bronzes (several of them by Barye), suggests Paris, 
and though it is certainly true that it is more like a 
Parisian square than a London square, nevertheless it is 
in reality an American square — perhaps the finest of its 
kind in the United States. If it were Parisian, it would 
have more trees and the surrounding buildings would be 
uniform in color and in cornice height. It is perhaps 
as much like Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia as any 
other, and that resemblance is of the slightest, for Mount 
Vernon Place has a quality altogether its own. It 
has no skyscrapers or semi-skyscrapers to throw it out 
of balance; and though the structures which surround 
it are of white stone, brown stone, and red brick, and of 
anything but homogeneous architecture, nevertheless a 
comparative uniformity of height, a universal solidity 
of construction, and a general grace about them, com- 
bine to give the Place an air of equilibrium and dignity 
and elegance. 

Including the Washington Monument, Baltimore has 

33 



-rf- 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

three lofty landmarks, likely to be particularly noticed 
by the roving visitor. Of the remaining two, one is the 
old brick shot-tower in the lower part of town, which 
legend tells us was put up without the use of scaffolding 
nearly a hundred years ago; while the other, a more 
modern, if less modest structure, proudly surmounts a 
large commercial building and is itself capped by the 
gigantic effigy of a bottle. This bottle is very con- 
spicuous because of its emplacement, because it revolves, 
and because it is illuminated at night. You can never 
get away from it. 

One evening I asked a man what the 1:>ottle meant up 
there. 

"It 's a memorial to Emerson," he told me. 

"Are they so fond of Emerson down here?" 

"I don't know as they are so all-fired fond of him," 
he answered. 

"But they must be fond of him to put up such a big 
memorial. Why, even in Boston, where he w^as born, 
they have no such memorial as that." 

"He put it up himself," said the man. 

That struck me as strange. It seemed somehow out 
of character with the great philosopher. Also, I could 
not see why, if he did wish to raise a memorial to him- 
self, he had elected to fashion it in the form of a bottle 
and put it on top of an office building. 

"I suppose there is some sort of symbolism about it?" 
I suggested. 

"Now you got it," approved the man. 

34 



WHERE THE CLIMATES MEET 

I gazed at the tower for a while in thought. Then 
1 said: 

"Do you suppose that Emerson meant something hke 
this : that human Hf e or, indeed, the soul, may be likened 
to the contents of a bottle; that day by day we use up 
some portion of the contents — call it, if you like, the 
nectar of existence — until the fluid of life runs low, and 
at last is gone entirely, leaving only the husk, as it were 
— or, to make the metaphor more perfect, the shell, or 
empty bottle: the container of what Emerson himself 
called, if I recollect correctly, 'the soul that maketh all' 
— do you suppose he meant to teach us some such thing 
as that?" 

The man looked a little confused by this deep and 
beautiful thought. 

"He jnight of meant that," he said, somewhat dubi- 
ously. "But they tell me Captain Emerson 's a practical 
man, and I reckon what he mainly meant was that he 
made his money out of this-here Bromo Seltzer, and he 
was darn glad of it, so he thought he 'd put him up a big 
Bromo Seltzer bottle as a kind of cross between a monu- 
ment and an ad." 

If the bottle tower represents certain modern con- 
cepts of what is suitable in architecture, it is never- 
theless pleasant to record the fact that many honorable 
old buildings — most of them residences — survive in 
Baltimore, and that, because of their survival, the city 
looks older than New York and fully as old as either 
Philadelphia or Boston. But in this, appearances are 

35 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

misleading-, for New York and Boston were a century 
old, and Philadelphia half a century, when Baltimore 
was first laid out as a town. Efforts to start a settle- 
ment near the city's present site were, it is true, being 
made before William Penn and his Quakers established 
Philadelphia, but a letter written in 1687 by Charles Cal- 
vert, third Baron Baltimore, explains that: "The peo- 
ple there [are] not affecting to build nere each other but 
soe as to have their houses nere the watters for con- 
veniencye of trade and their lands on each side of and 
behynde their houses, by which it happens that in most 
places there are not fifty houses in the space of thirty 
myles." ^ 

The difficulty experienced by the Barons Baltirnore,' 
Lords Proprietary of Maryland, in building up communi- 
ties in their demesne was not a local problem, but one 
which confronted those interested in the development 
of the entire portion of this continent now occupied by 
the Southern States. Generally speaking, towns came 
into being more slowly in the South than in the North, 
and it seems probable that one of the principal reasons 
for this may be found in the fact that settlers through- 
out the South lived generally at peace with the Indians, 
whereas the northern settlers were obliged to congre- 
gate in towns for mutual protection. Thus, in colonial 
days, while the many cities of New York and New Eng- 
land were coming into being, the South was develop- 
ing its vast and isolated plantations. Farms on the St. 

^ From "Historic Towns of the Southern States." 

36 



WHERE THE CLIMATES MEET 

Lawrence River and on the Detroit River, where the 
French were settHng, were very narrow and very deep, 
the idea being to range the houses close together on the 
river front ; but on such rivers as the Potomac, the Rap- 
pahannock and the James, no element of early fear is to 
be traced in the form of the broad baronial plantations. 

Nevertheless, when Baltimore began at last to grow, 
she became a prodigy, not only among American cities, 
but among the cities of the world. Her first town di- 
rectory was published in 1796, and she began the next 
year as an incorporated city, with a mayor, a population 
of about twenty thousand, and a curiously assorted early 
history containing such odd items as that the first um- 
brella carried in the United States was brought from 
India and unfurled in Baltimore in 1772; that the town 
had for some time possessed such other useful articles 
as a fire engine, a brick theater, a newspaper, and 
policemen; that the streets were lighted with oil lamps; 
that such proud signs of metropoHtanism as riot and epi- 
demic were not unknown; that before the Revolution 
bachelors were taxed for the benefit of his Britannic 
Majesty ; and that at fair time the "lid was off," and the 
citizen or visitor who wished to get himself arrested 
must needs be diligent indeed. 



37 



CHAPTER IV 
TRIUMPHANT DEFEAT 

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories. 

— Montaigne. 

FOLLOWING the incorporation of the city, Balti- 
more grew much as Chicago was destined to 
grow more than a century later ; within less than 
thirty years, when Chicago was a tiny village, Balti- 
more had become the third city in the United States : a 
city of wealthy merchants engaged in an extensive for- 
eign trade; for in those days there was an American 
merchant marine, and the swift, rakish Baltimore clip- 
pers were known the seven seas over. 

The story of modern Baltimore is entirely unrelated 
to the city's early history. It consists in a simple but 
inspiring record of regeneration springing from dis- 
aster. It is the story of Chicago, of San Francisco," of 
Galveston, of Dayton, and of many a smaller town: a 
cataclysm, a few days of despair, a return of courage, 
and another beginning. 

Imagine yourself being tucked into bed one night by 
your valet or your maid, as the case may be, calm in the 
feeling that all was secure: that your business was re- 
turning a handsome income, that your stocks and bonds 

38 



TRIUMPHANT DEFEAT 

were safe in the strong box, that the prosperity of your 
descendants was assured. Then imagine ruin coming 
Hke Hghtning in the night. In the morning you are 
poor. Your business, your investments, your very 
hopes, are gone. Everything is wiped out. The labor 
of a Hfetime must be begun again. 

Such an experience was that of Baltimore in the fire 
of 1904. 

On the sickening morning following the conflagration 
two Baltimore men, friends of mine, walked down 
Charles Street to a point as near the ruined region as it 
was possible to go. 

''Well," said one, surveying the smoking crater, ''what 
do you think of it ?" 

"Baltimore is gone," was the response. "We are off 
the map." 

How many citizens of Chicago, of San Francisco, of 
Galveston, of Dayton have known the anguish of that 
first aftermath of hopelessness ! How many citizens of 
Baltmiore knew it that day! And yet how bravely 
and with what magic swiftness have these cities risen 
from their ruins! Was not Rome burned? Was 
not London ? And is it not, then, time for men to learn 
from the history of other men and other cities that dis- 
aster does not spell the end, but is oftentimes another 
name for opportunity? 

Always, after disaster to a city, come improvements, 
but because disaster not only cleans the slate but simul- 
taneously stuns the mind, a portion of the opportunity 

39 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

is invariably lost. The task of rebuilding, of widening 
a few streets, looks large enough to him who stands 
amidst destruction — and there, consequently, improve- 
ment usually stops. That is why the downtown boule- 
vard system of Chicago has yet to be completed, in spite 
of the fact that it might with little difficulty have been 
completed after the Chicago fire (although it is only 
just to add that city planning was almost an unknown 
art in America at that time) ; and that also is why the 
hills of San Francisco are not terraced, as it was sug- 
gested they should be after the fire, but remain to-day 
inaccessible to frontal attack by even the maddest moun- 
tain goat of a taxi driver. 

These matters are not mentioned in the way of criti- 
cism : I have only admiration for the devastated cities 
and for those who built them up again. I call attention 
to lost opportunities with something like reluctance, 
and only in the wish to emphasize the fact that our 
crippled or destroyed cities do invariably rise again, and 
that if the next American city to sustain disaster shall 
but have this simple lesson learned in advance. It may 
thereby register a new high mark in municipal intel- 
ligence and a new record among the rebuilt cities, by 
making more sweet than any other city ever made them, 
the uses of adversity. 

The fire of 1904 found Baltimore a town of narrow 
highways, old buildings, bad pavements, and open gut- 
ter drains. The streets were laid in what is known as 
"southern cobble," which is the next thing to no pave- 

40 



TRIUMPHANT DEFEAT 

ment at all, being made of irregular stones, large and 
small, laid in the dirt and tamped down. For bumps 
and ruts there is no pavement in the world to be com- 
pared with it. There were no city sewers. Outside a 
few affluent neighborhoods, the citizens of which clubbed 
together to build private sewers, the cesspool was in gen- 
eral use, while domestic drainage emptied into the road- 
side gutters. These were made passable, at crossings, 
by stepping stones, about the bases of which passed in- 
teresting armadas of potato peelings, floating, upon 
wash days, in water having the fine Mediterranean hue 
which comes from diluted blueing. Everybody seemed 
to find the entire system adequate; for, it was argued, 
the hilly contours of the city caused the drainage quickly 
to be carried off, while as for typhoid and mosquitoes — 
well, there had always been typhoid and mosquitoes, just 
as there had always been these open gutters. It was all 
quite good enough. 

Then the fire. 

And then the upbuilding of the city — not only of the 
acres and acres comprising the burned section, in which 
streets were widened and skyscrapers arose where fire- 
traps had been — but outside the fire zone, where sewers 
were put down and pavements laid. Nor was the change 
merely physical. With the old buildings, the old spirit 
of laisses faire went up in smoke, and in the embers a 
municipal conscience was born. Almost as though by 
the light of the flames which engulfed it, the city be- 
gan to see itself as it had never seen itself before: to 

41 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

take account of stock, to plan broadly for the future. 

Nor has the new-born spirit died. Only last year an 
extensive red-light district was closed effectively and 
once for all. Baltimore is to-day free from flagrant 
commercialized vice. And if not quite all the old cobble 
pavements and open-gutter drains have been eliminated, 
there are but few of them left — left almost as though for 
purposes of contrast — and the Baltimorean who takes 
you to the Ghetto and shows you these ancient remnants 
may immediately thereafter escort you to the Fallsway, 
where the other side of the picture is presented. 

The Fallsway is a brand-new boulevard of pleasing 
aspect, the peculiar feature of which is that it is nothing 
more or less than a cover over i;he top of Jones's Falls, 
which figured in the early history of Baltimore as a 
water course, but which later came to figure as a great, 
open, trunk sewer. 

Every one in Baltimore is proud of the Fallsway, but 
particularly so are the city engineers who carried the 
work through. While in Baltimore I had the pleasure 
of meeting one of these gentlemen, and I can assure you 
that no young head of a family was ever more delighted 
with his new cottage in a suburb, his wife, his children, 
his garden, and his collie puppy, than was this engineer 
with his boulevard sewer. Like a lover, he carried pic- 
tures of it in his pocket, and like a lover he would as- 
sure you that it was "not like other sewers." Nor could 
he speak of it without beginning to wish to take you out 
to see it — not merely for a motor ride along the top of it, 

42 



TRIUMPHANT DEFEAT 

either. No, his hospitality did not stop there. When 
he invited you to a sewer he invited you in. And if you 
went in with him, no one could make you come out until 
you wanted to. 

As he told my companion and me of the three great 
tubes, the walks beside them, the conduits for gas and 
electricity, and all the other wonders of the place, I be- 
gan to wish that we might go with him, for, though we 
have been to a good many places together, this was 
something new: it was the first time we had ever been 
invited to drop into a sewer and make ourselves as much 
at home as though we lived there. 

My companion, however, seemed unsympathetic to the 
project. 

"Sewers, you know," he said, when I taxed him with 
indifference, "have come to have a very definite place in 
both the literary and the graphic arts. How do you pro- 
pose to treat it?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"When you write about it: Are you going to write 
about it as a realist, a mystic, or a romanticist?" 

I said I did n't know. 

"Well, a man who is going to write of a sewer ought 
to know," he told me severely. "You 're not up to 
sewers yet. They 're too big for you. If you take my 
advice you '11 keep out of the sewers for the present and 
stick to the gutters." 

So I did. 

43 



CHAPTER V 
TERRAPIN AND THINGS 

BALTIMORE society has a Maryland and Vir- 
ginia base, but is seasoned with famihes of 
Acadian descent, and with others descended from 
the Pennsylvania Dutch — those *'Dutch" who, by the 
way, are not Dutch at all, being of Saxon and Bavarian 
extraction. Many Virginians settled in Baltimore after 
the war, and it may be in part owing to this fact, that 
fox-hunting with horse and hound, as practised for 
three centuries past in England, and for nearly two 
centuries by Virginia's country gentlemen, is carried on 
extensively in the neighborhood of Baltimore, by the 
Green Spring Valley Hunt Club, the Elkridge Fox- 
Hunting Club and some others — which brings me to the 
subject of clubs in general. 

The Baltimore Country Club, at Roland Park, just 
beyond the city limits, has a large, well-set clubhouse, an 
active membership, and charming rolling golf links, one 
peculiarity of the course being that a part of the city's 
water-supply system has been utiHzed for hazards. 

The two characteristic clubs of the city itself, the 
Maryland Club and the Baltimore Club, are known the 
country over. The former occupies a position in Balti- 
more comparable with that of the Union Club in New 

44 



TERRAPIN AND THINGS 

York, the Chicago Club in Chicago, or the Pacific Union 
in San Francisco, and has to its credit at least one 
famous dish: Terrapin, Maryland Club Style. 

The Baltimore Club is used by a younger group of 
men and has a particularly pleasant home in a large 
mansion, formerly the residence of the Abell family, 
long known in connection with that noteworthy old sheet, 
the Baltimore "Sun," which, it may be remarked in pass- 
ing, is curiously referred to by many Baltimoreans, not 
as the "Sun," but as the "Sun-paper." 

This odd item reminds me of another : In the Balti- 
telephone book I chanced to notice under the letter "F" 
the entry: 

Fisher, Frank, of J. 

Upon inquiry I learned that the significance of this 
was that, there being more than one gentleman of the 
name of Frank Fisher in the city, this Mr. Frank Fisher 
added "of J" to his name (meaning "son of John") for 
purposes of differentiation. I was informed further 
that this custom is not uncommon in Baltimore, in cases 
where a name is duplicated, and I was shown an- 
other example: that of Mr. John Fyfe Symington 
of S. 

A typically southern institution of long standing, and 
highly characteristic of the social life of Baltimore, is 
the Bachelors' Cotillion, one of the oldest dancing clubs 
in the country. During the season this organization 
gives a series of some half-dozen balls which are the 
events of the fashionable year. 

45 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

The organization and general character of the Bache- 
lors' Cotillion is not unlike that of the celebrated St. 
Cecilia Society of Charleston. The cost of member- 
ship is so slight that almost any eligible young man 
can easily afford it. There is, however, a long waiting- 
list. The club is controlled by a board of governors, 
the members of which hold office for life, and who, in- 
stead of being elected by the organization are selected 
in camera by the board itself, when vacancies occur. 

The balls given by this society are known as the Mon- 
day Germans, and at these balls, which are held in the 
Lyric Theater, the city's debutantes are presented to 
society. As in all southern cities, much is made of 
debutantes in Baltimore. On the occasion of their first 
Monday German all their friends send them flowers, 
and they appear flower-laden at the ball, followed by 
their relatives who are freighted down with their dar- 
lings' superfluous bouquets. The modern steps are 
danced at these balls, but there are usually a few cotillion 
figures, albeit without ''favors." And perhaps the best 
part of it all is that the first ball of the season, and the 
Christmas ball, end at one o'clock, and that all the others 
end at midnight. That seems to me a humane arrange- 
ment, although the opinion may only signify that I am 
growing old. 

Another very characteristic phase of Baltimore life, 
and of southern life — at least in many cities — is that, 
instead of dealing with the baker, and the grocer, and 
the fish-market man around the corner, all Baltimore 

46 



TERRAPIN AND THINGS 

women go to the great market-sheds and do their own 
selecting under what amounts to one great roof. 

The Lexington Market, to which my companion and 
I had the good fortune to be taken by a Baltimore lady, 
is comparable, in its picturesqueness with Les Halles of 
Paris, or the fascinating market in Seattle, where the 
Japanese pile up their fresh vegetables with such charm- 
ing show of taste. The great sheds cover three long 
blocks, and in the countless stall-like shops which they 
contain may be found everything for the table, includ- 
ing flowers to trim it and after-dinner sweets. I doubt 
that any northern housewife knows such a market or 
such a profusion of comestibles. In one stall may be 
purchased meat, in the next vegetables, in the next fish, 
in the next bread and cake, in the next butter and butter- 
milk, in the next fruit, or game, or flowers, or — at Christ- 
mas time — tree trimmings. These stalls, with their con- 
tents, are duplicated over and over again; and if your 
fair guide be shopping for a dinner party, at which two 
men from out of town are to be initiated into the de- 
lights of the Baltimore cuisine, she may order up the 
costly and aristocratic Malacoclemmys, the diamond- 
back terrapin, sacred in Baltimore as is the Sacred Cod 
himself in Boston. 

The admirable encyclopedia of Messrs. Funk & Wag- 
nail's informs me that ''the diamond-back salt-water ter- 
rapin ... is caught in salt marshes along the coast 
from New England to Texas, the finest being those of 
the Massachusetts and the northern coasts." The italics 

47 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

are mine; and upon the italicized passage I expect the 
mayor and town council of Baltimore, or even the 
Government of the State of Maryland, to proceed against 
Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls, whose valuable volumes 
should forthwith be placed upon the State's index ex- 
purgatorins. 

Of a marketman I obtained the following lore con- 
cerning the tortoise of the terrapin species : 

In the Baltimore markets four kinds of terrapin are 
sold — not counting muskrat, which is sometimes dis- 
guised with sauce and sherry and served as a substitute. 
The cheapest and toughest terrapin is known as the 
''slider." Slightly superior to the "slider" is the "fat- 
back," measuring, usually, about nine or ten inches in 
length, and costing, at retail, fifty cents to a dollar, ac- 
cording to season and demand. Somewhat better than 
the "fat-back," but of about the same size and cost, is 
the "golden-stripe" terrapin ; but all these are the merest 
poor relations of the diamond-back. Some diamond- 
back terrapin are supplied for the Baltimore market 
from North Carolina, but these, my marketman assured 
me, are inferior to those of Chesapeake Bay. (Every- 
thing in, or from, North Carolina seems to be inferior, 
according to the people of the other Southern States.) 

Although there is a closed season for terrapin, the 
value of the diamond-back causes him to be relentlessly 
hunted during the open season, with the result that, like 
the delectable lobster, he is passing. As the foolish 

48 







If s'le is shopping for a dinner party, she may order the costly and aristocratic 
diamond-back terrapin, sacred in Baltimore as is the Sacred Cod in Boston 



TERRAPIN AND THINGS 

lobster-fishermen of northern New England are kilHng 
the goose — or, rather, the crustacean — that lays the 
golden eggs, so are the terrapin hunters of the Chesa- 
peake. Two or three decades ago, lobster and terrapin 
alike were eaten in the regions of their abundance as 
cheap food. One Baltimore lady told me that her 
father's slaves, on an Eastern Shore plantation, used to 
eat terrapin. Yet behold the cost of the precious dia- 
mond-back to-day! In his smaller sizes, according to 
my marketman, he is worth about a dollar an inch, 
while when grown to fair proportions he costs as much 
as a railroad ticket from Baltimore to Chicago. And 
for my part I would about as soon eat the ticket as the 
terrapin. 

Of a number of other odd items which help to give 
Baltimore distinct flavor I find the following in my note- 
books : 

There are good street railways; also 'bus lines oper- 
ated by the United Railways Company. Under the 
terms of its charter this company was originally obliged 
to turn over to the city thirteen per cent, of its gross in- 
come, to be expended upon the upkeep of parks. Of 
late years the amount has been reduced to nine per cent. 
The parks are admirable. 

Freight rates from the west to Baltimore are, I am 
informed, enough lower than freight rates to New York, 
Boston, or Philadelphia, to give Baltimore a decided ad- 
vantage as a point of export. Also she is admirably 

49 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

situated as to sources of coal supply. (I do not care 
much for the last two items, myself, but put them in to 
please the Chamber of Commerce.) 

It is the habit of my companion and myself, when 
visiting strange cities, to ask for interesting eating- 
places of one sort or another. In Baltimore there seems 
to be no choice but to take meals in hotels — unless one 
may wish to go to the Dutch Tea room or the Woman's 
Exchange for a shoppers' lunch, and to see (in the lat- 
ter establishment) great numbers of ladies sitting upon 
tall stools and eating at a lunch-counter — a somewhat 
curious spectacle, pei^haps, but neither pleasing to the 
eye nor thrilling to the senses. 

The nearest thing to "character" which I found in a 
Baltimore eating-place was at an estabHshment known 
as Kelly's Oyster House, a place in a dark quarter of the 
town. It had the all-night look about it, and the negro 
waiters showed themselves not unacquainted with cer- 
tain of the city's gilded youth. Kelly's is a sort of 
southern version of "Jack's" — if you know Jack's. 
But I don't think Jack's has any flight of stairs to fall 
down, such as Kelly's has. 

The dining rooms of the various hotels are consider- 
ably used, one judges, by the citizens of Baltimore. The 
Kernan Hotel, which we visited one night after the 
theater, looked like Broadway. Tables were crowded 
together and there was dancing between them — and be- 
tween mouthfuls. So, too, at the Belvedere, which is 

50 



TERRAPIN AND THINGS 

used considerably by Baltimore's gay and fashionable 
people. 

My companion and I stayed at the Belvedere and 
found it a good hotel, albeit one which has, I think, 
become a shade too well accustomed to being called 
good. Perhaps because of a city ordinance, perhaps 
because the waiters want to go to bed, they have a 
trick, in the Belvedere dining-room, during the cold 
weather, of opening the windows and freezing out such 
dilatory supper-guests as would fain sit up and talk. 
This is a system even more effective than the ancient 
one of mopping up the floors, piling chairs upon the 
tables, and turning out enough lights to make the room 
dull. A good post-midnight conversationalist — and 
Baltimore is not without them — can stand mops, buckets, 
and dim lights, but turn cold drafts upon his back and he 
gives up, sends for his coat, buttons it about his paunch 
and goes sadly home. 

It is fitting that last of all should be mentioned the 
man who views you with keen eye as you arrive in 
Baltimore, and who watches you depart. If you are in 
Baltimore he knows it. And when you go away he 
knows that, too. Also, during racing season, he knows 
whether you bet, and whether you won or lost. He is 
always at the station and always at the race track, and 
if you don't belong in Baltimore he is aware of it the 
instant he sets eyes upon you, because he knows every 
man, woman, child, and dog in Baltimore, and they all 
know him. If you are a Baltimorean you are already 

51 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

aware that I refer to the sapient McNeal, poHceman at 
the Union Station. 

McNeal and Cardinal Gibbons are, I take it, the two 
preeminent figures of the city. Their duties, I admit, 
are not alike, but each performs his duties with discre- 
tion, with devotion, with distinction. The latter has al- 
ready celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of his nomi- 
nation as cardinal, but the former is well on the way 
toward his fortieth anniversary as officer at the Union 
Station. 

McNeal is an artist. He loves his work. And when 
his day ofif comes and he puts on citizen's clothing and 
goes out for a good time, where do you suppose he goes ? 

Why down to the station, of course, to talk things 
over with the man who is relieving him ! 



5^ 



CHAPTER VI 

DOUGHOREGAN MANOR AND THE 
CARROLLS 

IF I am to be honest about the South, and about my- 
self — and I propose to be — I must admit that, 
though I approached the fabled land in a most 
friendly spirit, I had nevertheless become a little tired 
of the southern family tree, the southern ancestral 
hall, and the old southern negro servant of stage and 
story, and just a little skeptical about them. Almost 
unconsciously, at first, I had begun to wonder whether, 
instead of being things of actuality, they were not, 
rather, a mere set of romantic trade-marks, so to speak; 
symbols signifying the South as the butler with side 
whiskers signifies English comedy; as "Her" visit to 
"His" rooms, in the third act, signifies English drama; 
or as double doorways in a paneled "set" signify French 
farce. 

Furthermore, it had occurred to me that of persons 
of southern accent, or merely southern extraction, 
whom I had encountered in the North, a strangely high 
percentage were not only of "fine old southern family," 
but of peculiarly tenacious purpose in respect to having 
the matter understood. 

53 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

I cannot pretend to say when the "professional South- 
erner," as we know him in New York, began to operate, 
nor shall I attempt to place the literary blame for his 
existence — as Mark Twain attempted to place upon Sir 
Walter Scott the blame for southern "chivalry," and 
almost for the Civil War itself. Let me merely say, 
then, that I should not be surprised to learn that "Col- 
onel Carter of Carter sville" — that lovable old fraud who 
did not mean to be a fraud at all, but whose naivete 
passed the bounds of human credulity — was not far re- 
moved from the bottom of the matter. 

In the tenor of these sentiments my companion shared 
— though I should add that he complained bitterly about 
agreeing with me, saying that with hats alike, and over- 
coats alike, and trunks alike, and suitcases alike, we al- 
ready resembled two members of a minstrel troupe, and 
that now since we were beginning to think alike, through 
traveling so much together, our friends would not 
be able to tell us apart when we got home again — in 
spite of this he admitted to the same suspicion of the 
South as I expressed. Wherefore we entered the re- 
gion like a pair of agnostics entering the great beyond : 
skeptical, but ready to be "shown." 

It was with the generous purpose of "showing" us 
that a Baltimore friend of ours called for us one day 
with his motor car and was presently wafting us over 
the good oiled roads of Maryland, through sweet, rolling 
country, which seemed to have been made to be ridden 
over upon horseback. 

54 



DOUGHOREGAN MANOR 

It was autumn, but though the chill of northern 
autumn was in the air, the coloring was not so high in 
key as in New York or New England, the foliage being 
less brilliant, but rich with subtle harmonies of brown 
and green, blending softly together as in a faded tap- 
estry, and giving the landscape an expression of brood- 
ing tenderness. 

After passing through Ellicott City, an old, shambling 
town quite out of character with its new-sounding 
name, which has such a western ring to it, we traversed 
for several miles the old Frederick Turnpike — formerly 
a national highway between East and West — swooping 
up and down over a series of little hills and vales, and 
at length turned off into a private road winding through 
a venerable forest, which was like an old Gothic cathe- 
dral with its pavement of brown leaves and its tree- 
trunk columns, tall, gray, and slender. 

When we had progressed for perhaps a mile, we 
emerged upon a sHght eminence commanding a broad 
view of meadow and of woodland, and in turn com- 
manded by a great house. 

The house was of buff-colored brick. It was low and 
very long, with -wings extending from its central struc- 
ture like beautiful arms flung wide in welcome, and at 
the end of each a building like an ornament balanced in 
an outstretched hand. The graceful central portico, 
rising by several easy steps from the driveway level, the 
long line of cornice, the window sashes, the delicate 
wooden railing surmounting the roof, the charming lit- 

55 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

tie tower which so gracefully held its place above the 
geometrical center of the house, the bell tower crown- 
ing one wing at its extremity — all these were white. 

No combination of colors can be lovelier, in such a 
house, than yellow-buff and white, provided they be 
brightened by some notes of green ; and these notes were 
not lacking, for several aged elms, occupying symmet- 
rical positions with regard to the house, seemed to gaze 
down upon it with the adoration of a group of mothers, 
aunts, and grandmothers, as they held their soft dra- 
peries protectively above it. The green of the low ter- 
race — called a "haha," supposedly with reference to the 
mirth-provoking possibilities of an accidental step over 
the edge — did not reach the base of the buff walls, but 
was lost in a fringe of clustering shrubbery, from which 
patches of lustrous English ivy clambered upward over 
the brick, to lay strong, mischievous fingers upon the 
blinds of certain second-story windows. The blinds 
were of course green; green blinds being as necessary 
to an American window as eyelashes to an eye. 

Immediately before the portico and centering upon it 
the drive swung in a spacious circle, from which there 
broke, at a point directly opposite the portico, an ave- 
nue, straight and long as a rifle range, and lovely as 
the loveliest of New England village greens. Down the 
middle of this broad way, between grass borders each as 
wide as a great boulevard, and double rows of patri- 
archal trees, ran a road which, in the old days, con- 
tinued straight to Annapolis, thirty or more miles away, 

56 



DOUGHOREGAN MANOR 

where was the town house of the builder of this manor. 
As it stands to-day the avenue is less than half a mile 
long, but whatever its length, and whether one look 
down it from the house, or up the gentle grade from 
the far end, to where the converging lines of grass and 
foliage and sky melt into the house, it has about it some- 
thing of unreality, something of enchantment, something 
of that quality one finds in the rhapsodic landscapes of 
those poet painters who dream of distant shimmering 
palaces and supernal vistas peopled by fauns and nymphs 
dancing amid the trunks of giant trees whose luxuriant 
dark tops are contoured like the cumulus white clouds 
floating above them. 

There is nothing "baronial," nothing arrogant, about 
Doughoregan Manor, for though the house is noble, its 
nobility, consisting in spaciousness, simplicity, and grace 
combined with age, fits well into what, it seems to me, 
should be the architectural ideals of a republic. No 
house could be freer of unessential embellishment ; in de- 
tail it is plain almost to severity; yet the full impression 
that it gives, far from being austere, is of friendliness 
and hospitality. An approachable sort of house, a 
"homelike" house, it is perhaps less "imposing" than 
some other mansions, coeval with it, in Virginia, in 
Annapolis, and in Charleston; and yet it is as impressive, 
in its own way, as Warwick Castle, or Hurstmonceaux, 
or Loches, or Chinon, or Chenonceaux, or Heidelberg — 
not that it is so vast, that it has glowering battlements, 
or that it stuns the eye, but for precisely opposite rea- 

> 57 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

sons: because it is a consummate expression of repub- 
lican cultivation, of a fine old American home, and of 
the fine old American gentleman who built it, and whose 
descendants inhabit it to-day: Charles Carroll of Car- 
roUton, last to survive of those who signed the Declara- 
tion of Independence. 

The first Charles Carroll, known in the family as "the 
Settler," came from Ireland in 1688, and became a great 
landowner in Maryland. He was a highly educated 
gentleman and a Roman Catholic, as have also been his 
descendants. He acted as agent for Lord Baltimore. 

His son, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, or "Break- 
neck Carroll" ( so called because he was killed by a fall 
from the steps of his house), built the Carroll mansion 
at Annapolis, now the property of the Redemptionist 
Order. 

The third and most famous member of the family 
was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, "the Signer," builder 
of the manor house at Doughoregan — which, by the 
way, derives its name from a combination of the old 
Irish words dough, meaning "house" or "court," and 
O'Ragan, meaning "of the King"; the whole being pro- 
nounced, as with a slight brogue, "Doo-ray-gan," the ac- 
cent falling on the middle syllable — this Charles Car- 
roll, "the Signer," most famous of his line, was "Break- 
neck's" only son. When eight years old he was sent to 
France to be educated by the Jesuits. He spent six 
years at Saint-Omer, one at Rheims, two at the College 
of Louis le Grand, one at Bourges, where he studied civil 

58 



DOUGHOREGAN MANOR 

law, and after some further time in college in Paris went 
to London, entered the Middle Temple and there worked 
at the common law until his return to Maryland in 1765. 

Although Maryland was founded by the Roman Cath- 
olic Baron Baltimore on a basis of religious toleration, 
the Church of England had later come to be the es- 
tablished church in the British colonies in America, and 
Roman Catholics were unjustly used, being disfran- 
chised, taxed for the support of the English Church, and 
denied the right to establish schools or churches of their 
own, to celebrate the Mass, or to bear arms — the bear- 
ing of arms having been ''at that time the insignia of so- 
cial position and gentle breeding." 

Finding this situation well-nigh intolerable, Carroll 
of Carrollton, already a man of great wealth, joined 
with his cousin, Father John Carroll, who later be- 
came first Archbishop of Baltimore (for many years 
the only Roman Catholic diocese in the United States, 
embracing all States and Territories), in an appeal to 
the King of France for a grant of land in what is now 
Arkansas, but was then a part of Louisiana, this land 
to be used as a refuge for Roman Catholics and Jesuits, 
whom the Carrolls proposed to lead thither precisely as 
Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, had led them to Mary- 
land to escape persecution. 

The Roman Catholics were not, however, by this time 
the only American colonists who felt themselves abused ; 
the whole country was chafing, and the seeds of revolu- 
tion were beginning to show their red sprouts. 

59 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

It might have been expected that Mr. Carroll, being 
the richest man in the country, would hesitate at re- 
bellion, but he did not. Unlike some of our present-day 
citizens of foreign extraction, and in circumstances in- 
volving not merely sentiment, but property and perhaps 
life, he showed no tendency to split his Americanism, but 
boldly threw his noble old cocked hat into the ring. Nor 
did he require a Roosevelt to make his duty clear to him. 

In 1775 Mr. Carroll was a delegate to the Revolu- 
tionary Convention of Maryland; in 1776 he went with 
three other commissioners (Benjamin Franklin, Samuel 
Chase, and Father John Carroll) to try to induce the 
Canadian colonies to join in the revolt; and soon after 
his return from this unsuccessful journey he signed the 
Declaration of Independence. Of the circumstances of 
the signing the late Robert C. Winthrop of Boston gave 
the following description : 

"Will you sign?" said Hancock to Charles Carroll. 

"Most willingly," was the reply. 

"There goes two millions with the dash of a pen," says one of 
those standing by ; while another remarks : "Oh, Carroll, you will 
get off, there are so many Charles Carrolls." 

And then we may see him stepping back to the desk and putting 
that addition "of Carrollton" to his name, which will designate 
him forever, and be a prouder title of nobility than those in the 
peerage of Great Britain, which were afterward adorned by his 
accomplished and fascinating granddaughters. 

Some doubt has been cast upon this tale by the fact 
that papers in possession of the Carroll family prove 
that Mr. Carroll was wont to sign as "of Carrollton" 

60 



DOUGHOREGAN MANOR 

long before the Declaration. Further, it is recorded 
that John H. B. Latrobe, Mr. Carroll's contemporaneous 
biographer, never heard the story from the subject of his 
writings. 

Nevertheless, I believe that it is true, for it seems to 
me likely that though Mr. Carroll used the subscrip- 
tion "of Carrollton" in conducting his affairs at home, 
where there was chance for confusion between his son 
Charles, his cousin Charles, and himself, he might well 
have been inclined to omit it from a public document, as 
to the signers of which there could be no confusion. 
Further, the fact that he never told the story to Latrobe 
does not invalidate it, for as every man (and every 
man's wife) knows, men do not remember to tell every- 
thing to their wives, and it is still less likely that 
they tell everything to their biographers. Further still, 
Mr. Winthrop visited Mr. Carroll just before the lat- 
ter's death, and as he certainly did not invent the story 
it seems probable that he got it from ''the Signer" him- 
self. Last, I like the story and intend to believe it any- 
way — which, it occurs to me, is the best reason of all, and 
the one most resembling my reason for being more or 
less Episcopalian and Republican. 

Latrobe tells us that Mr. Carroll was, in his old age, 
"a small, attenuated old man, with a prominent nose and 
somewhat receding chin, and small eyes that sparkled 
when he was interested in conversation. His head was 
small and his hair white, rather long and silky, while 
his face and forehead were seamed with wrinkles," 

6i 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

From the same source, and others, we glean the in- 
formation that he was a charming and courteous gentle- 
man, that he practised early rising and early retiring, 
was regular at meals, and at morning and evening prayer 
in the chapel, that he took cold baths and rode horse- 
back, and that for several hours each day he read the 
Greek, Latin, English, or French classics. 

At the age of eighty-three he rode a horse in a pro- 
cession in Baltimore, carrying in one hand a copy of the 
Declaration of Independence; and six years later, when 
by that strange freak of chance ex-Presidents Adams 
and Jefferson died simultaneously on July 4, leaving Mr. 
Carroll the last surviving signer of the Declaration, he 
took part in a memorial parade and service in their 
memory. In 1826, at the age of eighty-nine, he was 
elected a director of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad 
Company, and at the age of ninety he laid the founda- 
tion stone marking the commencement of that rail- 
road — the first important one in the United States. 
We are told that at this time Mr. Carroll was erect in 
carriage and that he could see and hear as well as most 
men. In 1832, having lived to within five years of a 
full century, having been active in the Revolution, having 
seen the War of 1812, he died less than thirty years be- 
fore the outbreak of the Civil War, and was buried in 
the chapel of the manor house. 

This chapel, the like of which does not, so far as T 
know, exist in any other American house, is the burial 
place of a number of the Carrolls. It is used to-day, 

62 



DOUGHOREGAN MANOR 

regular Sunday services being held for the people of the 
neighborhood. An alcove to the south of the chancel 
contains seats for members of the family, and has access 
to the main portion of the house by a passageway which 
passes the bedroom known as the Cardinal's room, a 
large chamber furnished with massive old pieces of ma- 
hogany and decorated in red. This room has been occu- 
pied by Lafayette, by John Carroll, cousin of "the 
Signer" and first archbishop of Baltimore, and by Car- 
dinal Gibbons. It is on the ground floor and its win- 
dows command the series of terraces, with their plant- 
ings of old box, which slope away to gardens more than 
a century old. 

Viewed in one light Doughoregan Manor is a monu- 
ment, in another it is a treasure house of ancient por- 
traits and furniture and silver, but above all it is a home. 
The beautifully proportioned dining-room, the wade hall 
which passes through the house from the front portico 
to another overlooking the terraces and gardens at the 
back, the old shadowy library with its tree-calf bind- 
ings, the sunny breakfast room, the spacious bedcham- 
bers with their four-posters and their cheerful chintzes, 
the big bright shiny pantries and kitchens, all have that 
pleasant, easy air which comes of being lived in, and 
which is never attained in a "show place" which is 
merely a "show place" and nothing more. No dining 
table at which great personages have dined in the past 
has the charm of one the use of which has been steadily 
continued ; no old chair but is better for being sat in ; no 

63 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

ancient Sheffield tea service but gains immeasurably in 
charm from being used for tea to-day ; no old Venetian 
mirror but what is lovelier for reflecting the beauties of 
the present as it reflected those of the past ; no little old- 
time crib but what is better for a modern baby in it. It 
Is pleasant, therefore, to report that, like all other things 
the house contains, the crib at Doughoregan Manor was 
being used when we were there, for in it rested the baby 
son of the house ; by name Charles, and of his line the 
ninth. Further, it may be observed that from his 
youthful parents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bancroft Car- 
roll, present master and mistress of the place, Master 
Charles seemed to have inherited certain amiable traits. 
Indeed, in some respects, he outdoes his parents. For 
example, where the father and mother were cordial, the 
son chewed ruminatively upon his Angers and fastened 
upon my companion a gaze not merely interested, 
but expressive of enraptured astonishment. Likewise, 
though his parents received us kindly, they did not crow 
and gurgle with delight ; and though, on our departure, 
they said that we might come again, they neither waved 
their hands nor yet blew bubbles. 

Though the house has been ''done over" four times, 
and though the paneling was torn out of one room 
to make way for wall paper when wall paper came into 
style, everything has now been restored, and the place 
stands to-day to all intents and purposes exactly as it 
was. That so few changes were ever made in it, that it 
weathered successfully, with its contents, the disastrous 

64 



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DOUGHOREGAN MANOR 

period of Eastlake furniture and the American mansard 
roof, is a great credit to the Carroll family, and it is de- 
lightful to see such a house in the possession of those 
who can love it as it deserves to be loved, and preserve 
it as it deserves to be preserved. 

Mr. Charles Bancroft Carroll, who is a graduate of 
Annapolis and a grandson of the late Governor John Lee 
Carroll of Maryland, now farms some twenty-four hun- 
dred acres of the five or six thousand which surround the 
manor house. He raises blooded cattle and horses, and, 
though he rides with the Elkridge Hunt, also keeps his 
own pack and is starting the Howard County Hounds, 
an organization that will hunt the country around the 
manor, which is full of foxes. 

Of the innumerable family portraits contained in the 
house not a few are valuable and almost all are pleasing. 
When I remarked upon the high average of good looks 
among his progenitors, Mr. Carroll smiled in agree- 
ment, saying: *'Yes, I 'm proud of these pictures of my 
ancestors; most people's ancestors seem to have looked 
like the dickens." 

Among these noteworthy family portraits I recollect 
one of "the Signer" as a boy, standing on the shore and 
watching a ship sail out to sea ; one of the three beauti- 
ful Caton sisters, his granddaughters, who lived at 
Brooklandwood, in the Green Spring Valley, now the 
home of Mr. Isaac Emerson; one of Charles Carroll of 
Homewood, son of ''the Signer"; and one of Governor 
John Lee Carroll, who was born at Homewood. 

65 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

The Caton sisters and Charles Carroll of Homewood 
supply to the Carroll family archives that picturesque- 
ness which the history of every old family should pos- 
sess ; the former contributing beauty, the latter dash and 
extravagance, those qualities so annoying in a living 
relative, but so delightfully suggestive in an ancestor 
long defunct. If anything more be needed to round out 
the composition, it is furnished by the ghosts of Dough- 
oregan Manor: an old housekeeper with jingling keys, 
and an invisible coach, the wheels of which are heard 
upon the driveway before the death of any member of 
the family. 

Of the Caton sisters there were four, but because one 
of them, Mrs. McTavish, stayed at home and made the 
life of her grandfather happy, we do not hear so much of 
her as of the other three, who were internationally 
famous for their pulchritude, and were known in Eng- 
land as "the Three American Graces." All three mar- 
ried British peers, one becoming Marchioness of Welles- 
ley, another Duchess of Leeds, while the third became 
the wife of Lord Stafford, one of the noblemen em- 
balmed in verse by Fitz-Greene Llalleck : 

Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt, 
The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt, 
The Douglas in red herrings. 

As for Charles Carroll of Homewood, he was hand- 
some, charming, and athletic, and, as indicated in let- 
ters written to him by his father, caused that old gentle- 

66 



DOUGHOREGAN MANOR 

man a good deal of anxiety. It is said that at one time 
— perhaps during some period of estrangment from his 
wealthy parent — he acted as a fencing master in Balti- 
more. 

At the age of twenty-five he settled down — or let us 
hope he did — for he married Harriet Chew, whose sister 
"Peggy," Mrs. John Eager Howard of Baltimore, was a 
celebrated belle, and of whose own charm we may judge 
by the fact that General Washington asked her to remain 
in the room while he sat to Gilbert Stuart, declaring that 
her presence there would cause his countenance to "wear 
its most agreeable expression." The famous portrait 
painted under these felicitous conditions hung in the 
White House when, in 1814, the British marched on 
Washington ; but when they took the city and burned the 
White House, the portrait did not perish with it, 
for history records that Dolly Madison carried it to 
safety, and along with it the original draft of the Dec- 
laration of Independence. 

Charles Carroll of Homewood died before his father, 
"the Signer," but the house, Homewood, which the lat- 
ter built for his son and daughter-in-law in 1809, stands 
to-day near the Baltimore city limits, at the side of 
Charles Street Boulevard, amid pleasant modern houses, 
many of which are of a design not out of harmony with 
the old mansion. Though not comparable in size with 
the manor house at Doughoregan, Homewood is an even 
more perfect house, being one of the finest examples of 
Georgian architecture to be found in the entire country. 

67 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

The fate of this house is hardly less fortunate than that 
of the paternal manor, for, with its surrounding lands, it 
has come into the possession of Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity. The fields of Homewood now form the campus 
and grounds of that excellent seat of learning, and the 
trustees of the university have not merely preserved 
the residence, using it as a faculty club, but have had the 
inspiration to find in it the architectural motif for the en- 
tire group of new college buildings, so that the campus 
may be likened to a bracelet wrought as a setting for 
this jewel of a house. 



68 



CHAPTER VII 
A RARE OLD TOWN 

THE drive from Baltimore to the sweet, slumber- 
ing city of Annapolis is over a good road, but 
through barren country. Taken in the crisp 
days of autumn, by a northern visitor sufficiently mis- 
guided to have supposed that beyond Mason and 
Dixon's Line the winters are tropical it may prove an 
uncomfortable drive — unless he be able to borrow a 
fur overcoat. It was on this drive that my disillusion- 
ment concerning the fall and winter climate of the South 
began, for, wearing two cloth overcoats, one over the 
other, I yet suffered agonies from cold. The sun shone 
down upon the open automobile in which we tore along, 
but its rays were no competitors for the biting wind. 
Through lap robes, cloth caps, and successive layers of 
clothing, and around the edges of goggles, fine little 
frozen fangs found their way, like the pliable beaks of a 
race of gigantic, fabulous mosquitoes from the Arctic 
regions. I have driven an open car over the New Eng- 
land snows for miles in zero weather, and been warm 
by comparison, because I was prepared. 

My former erroneous ideas as to the southern climate 
may be shared by others, and it is therefore well, per- 

69 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

haps, to enlarge a little bit upon the subject. Never, 
except during a winter passed in a stone tile-floored villa 
on the island of Capri, whither I went to escape the cold, 
have I been so conscious of it, as during fall, winter, and 
spring in the South. 

In the hotels of the South one may keep warm in cold 
weather, but in private homes it is not always possible 
to do so, for the popular illusion that the "sunny South" 
is of a uniformly temperate climate in the winter per- 
sists nowhere more violently than in the South itself. 
Many a house in Virginia, let alone the other States far- 
ther down the map, is without a furnace, and winter life 
in such houses, with their ineffectual wood fires, is like 
life in a refrigerator tempered by the glow of a safety 
match. As in Italy and Spain, so in the South it is often 
warmer outdoors than in; more than once during my 
southern voyage I was tempted to resume the habit, ac- 
quired in Capri, of wearing an overcoat in the house and 
taking it off on going out into the sunshine. True, in 
Capri we had roses blooming in the garden on Christmas 
Day, but that circumstance, far from proving warmth, 
merely proved the hardiness of roses. So, in the far 
South — excepting Florida and perhaps a strip of the 
Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama — the 
blooming of flowers in the winter does not prove that 
"Palm Beach suits" and panama hats invariably make a 
desirable uniform. 

Furthermore, I am inclined to believe that because 
some southern winter days are warm and others cold, a 

70 



A RARE OLD TOWN 

Northerner feels cold in the South more than he feels 
the corresponding temperature at home — on somewhat 
the principle which caused the Italians who went with 
the Duke of the Abruzzi on his polar expedition to with- 
stand cold more successfully than did the Scandinavi- 
ans. 

Of the southern summer I have no experience, but I 
have been repeatedly assured that certain of the southern 
beaches are nearly, if not quite, as comfortable in hot 
weather as are those of New Jersey or Long Island, 
while in numerous southern mountain retreats one may 
be fairly cool through the hot months — a fact which 
spells fortune for the hotel keepers of such high-perched 
resorts as Asheville, White Sulphur Springs, and the 
Hot Springs of Virginia, who have their houses full of 
Northerners in winter and Southerners in summer. 

The experience of arrival in Annapolis, delightful in 
any weather and at any time of year, gives one a satis- 
faction almost ecstatic after a cold, windy automobile 
ride such as we had suffered. To ache for the shelter of 
almost any town, or any sort of building, and, with such 
yearnings, to arrive in this dreamy city, whose mild air 
seems to be compounded from fresh winds oft" a glitter- 
ing blue sea, arrested by the barricade of ancient hos- 
pitable-looking houses, warmed by the glow of their sun- 
baked red brick, and freighted with a ghostly fragrance, 
as from the phantoms of the rose gardens of a century 
or two ago — to arrive, frigid and forlorn in such a haven, 

71 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

to drink a cup of tea in the old Paca house (now a hotel), 
is to experience heaven after purgatory. For there is 
no town that I know whose very house fronts hold out 
to the stranger that warm, old-fashioned welcome that 
Annapolis seems to give. 

The Paca house, which as a hotel has acquired the 
name Carvel Hall, is the house that Winston Churchill 
had in mind as the Manners house, of his novel "Richard 
Carvel." A good idea of the house, as it was, may be 
obtained by visiting the Brice house, next door, for the 
two are almost twins. When Mr. Churchill was a cadet 
at Annapolis, before the modern part of the Carvel Plall 
hotel was built, there were the remains of terraced gar- 
dens back of the old mansion, stepping down to an old 
spring house, and a rivulet which flowed through the 
grounds was full of watercress. The book describes a 
party at the house and in these gardens. The Chase 
house on Maryland Avenue was the one Mr. Churchill 
thought of as the home of Lionel Carvel, and he de- 
scribed the view from upper windows of this house, over 
the Harwood house, across the way, to the Severn. 

Annapolis, Baedeker tells me, was the first chartered 
city in the United States, having been granted its charter 
by Queen Anne considerably more than two centuries 
ago. It is, as every little boy and girl should know, the 
capital of Maryland, and is built around a little hill upon 
the top of which stands the old State House in which 
Washington surrendered his commission and in which 
met the first Constitutional Convention. 



A RARE OLD TOWN 

In its prime Annapolis was nearly as large a city as it 
is to-day, but that is not saying a great deal, for at the 
present time it has not so many inhabitants as Amarillo, 
Texas, or Brazil, Indiana. 

Nevertheless, the life of Annapolis in colonial days, 
and in the days which followed them, was very brilliant, 
and we learn from the diary of General Washington and 
from the writings of amazed Englishmen and French- 
men who visited the city in its period of glory that there 
were dinners and balls night after night, that the theater 
was encouraged in Annapolis more than in any other 
city, that the race meets compared with English race 
meets both as to the quality of the horses and of the 
fashionable attendance, that there were sixteen clubs, 
that the women of the city were beautiful, charming, and 
superbly dressed, that slaves in sumptuous liveries were 
to be seen about the streets, that certain gentlemen paid 
calls in barges which were rowed by half a dozen or 
more blacks, in uniform, and that the perpetual hospi- 
tality of the great houses was gorgeous and extravagant. 

The houses hint of these things. If you have seen the 
best old brick mansions of New England, and will 
imagine them more beautifully proportioned, set off by 
balancing wings and having infinitely finer details as to 
doorways, windows, porticos, and also as to wood carv- 
ings and fixtures within — as, for instance, the beautiful 
silver latches and hinges of the Chase house at An- 
napolis — you will gather something of the flavor of these 
old Southern homes. For though such venerable man- 

73 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

sions as the Chase, Paca, Brice, Hammond, Ridout, and 
Bordley houses, in AnnapoUs, are not without family 
resemblance to the best New England colonial houses, 
the resemblance is of a kind to emphasize the differ- 
ences, not only between the mansions of the North and 
South, but between the builders of them. The contrast 
is subtle, but marked. 

Your New England house, beautiful as it is, is stamped 
with austere simplicity. The man who built it was 
probably a scholar but he was almost certainly a Cal- 
vinist. He habited himself in black and was served by 
serving maids, instead of slaves in livery. If a woman 
was not flat-chested and forlorn, he was prone to re- 
gard her as the devil masquerading for the downfall 
of man — and no doubt with some justice, too. Night 
and morning he presided at family prayers, the purpose 
of which was to impress upon his family and servants 
that to have a good time was wicked, and that to be gay 
in this life meant hell-fire and damnation in the next. 

Upon this pious person his cousin of Annapolis looked 
with something not unlike contempt; for the latter, 
though he too was a scholar, possessed the sort of 
scholarliness which takes into account beauty and the 
lore of cosmopolitanism. He may have been religious 
or he may not have been, but if religious he demanded 
something handsome, something stylish, in his religion, 
as he did also in his residence, in his wife, his sons, his 
daughters, his horses, coaches, dinners, wines, and 
slaves. He did things with a flourish, and was not be- 
< 74 



A RARE OLD TOWN 

set by a perpetual consciousness and fear of hell. He 
approved of pretty women; he made love to them; he 
married them; he^w^as the father of them. His pretty 
daughters married men who also admired pretty women, 
and became the mothers of other pretty women, who 
became, in turn, the mothers and grandmothers of the 
pretty women of the South to-day. 

Your old-time Annapolis gentleman's ideas of a re- 
public were far indeed from those now current, for he 
understood perfectly the difference between a republic 
and a democracy — a difference which is not now so well 
understood. He believed that the people should elect 
the heads of the government, but he also believed that 
these heads should be elected from his own class, and 
that, having voted, the people should go about their busi- 
ness, trusting their betters to run the country as it should 
be run. 

This, at least, is my picture of the old aristocrats of 
Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, as conveyed to 
me by what I have seen of their houses and possessions 
and what I have read of their mode of life. They were 
the early princes of the Republic and by all odds its 
most picturesque figures. 

Very different from the spirit of appreciation and 
emulation shown by the trustees of Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity with regard to the old house, Homewood, in 
Baltimore, is that manifested in the architecture of the 
Naval Academy at Annapolis, where, in a city fairly 

75 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

flooded with examples of buildings, both beautiful and 
typically American, architectural hints were ignored, 
and there were erected great stone structures whose 
chief characteristics are size, solidity, and the look of 
being "government property." The main buildings of 
the Academy, with the exception of the chapel, suggest 
the sort of sublimated penitentiary that Mr. Thomas 
Mott Osborne might, one fancies, construct under a 
carte-blanche authorization, while the chapel, the huge 
dome of which is visible to all the country round, makes 
one think of a monstrous wedding cake fashioned in the 
form of a building and covered with white and yellow 
frosting in ornamental patterns. 

This chapel, one imagines, may have been inspired by 
the Invalides in Paris, but of the Invalides it falls far 
short. I know nothing of the history of the building, 
but it is easy to believe that the original intention may 
have been to place at the center of it, vmder the dome, a 
great well, over the parapet of which might have been 
seen the sarcophagus of John Paul Jones, in the crypt. 
One prefers to think that the architect had some such 
plan; for the crypt, as at present arranged, is hardly 
more than a dark cellar, approached by what seems to 
be a flight of humble back stairs. To descend into it, 
and find there the great marble coffin with its bronze 
dolphins, is not unlike going down into the cellar of a 
residence and there discovering the family silver repos- 
ing in the coal-bin. 

In this connection it is interesting to recall the fact 

76 



A RARE OLD TOWN 

that our sometimes piratical and always brilliant Revolu- 
tionary naval hero died in Paris, and that until a few 
years ago his resting place was unknown. The reader 
will remember that while General Horace Porter was 
American ambassador to France a search was insti- 
tuted for the remains of John Paul Jones, the greater 
part of the work having been conducted by Colonel H. 
Baily Blanchard, then first secretary of the Embassy, 
assisted by the ambassador and Mr. Henry Vignaud, 
dean of secretaries of embassy. The resting place of 
Jones was finally discovered in an abandoned cemetery 
in the city of Paris, over which houses had been built. 
The body was contained in a leaden casket and was pre- 
served in alcohol so that identification was easily accom- 
plished by means of a contemporaneous likeness of 
Jones, and also by means of measurements taken from 
Houdin's bust. The remains were accorded military 
honors in Paris, and were brought to this country on a 
war vessel. 

Why the crypt at Annapolis is as it is, I do not know, 
but in my own purely imaginary picture of what hap- 
pened, I see the architect's plans for a heroic display of 
Jones's tomb knocked on the head by some "practical 
man," some worthy dunce in the Navy Department, 
whom I can imagine as protesting: "But no! We 
can't take up space at the center of the chapel for any 
such purpose. It must be floored over to make room for 
pews. Otherwise where will the cadets sit?" 

So, although the grounds of the academy, with their 

77 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

lawns, and aged trees, and squirrels, and cadets, are 
charming, and although the solemn and industrious 
Baedeker assures me that the academy is the "chief lion" 
of Annapolis, and although I know that it is a great 
school, and that we need another like it in order properly 
to officer our navy, I prefer the old town with its old 
houses, and old streets bearing such reminiscent names 
as Hanover, Prince George, and Duke of Gloucester. 

For certain slang expressions used by cadets I am in- 
debted to a member of the corps. From this admiral- 
to-be I learn that a "bird" or "wazzo" is a man or boy; 
that a "pap sheet" is a report covering delinquencies, 
and that to "hit the pap" is to be reported for delin- 
quency; that "steam" is marine engineering, and to be 
"bilged for juice" is to fail in examinations in electrical 
engineering — to get an "unsat," or unsatisfactory mark, 
or even a "zip" or "swabo," which is a zero. Cadets do 
not escort girls to dances, but "drag" them; a girl is a 
"drag," and a "heavy drag" or "brick" is an unattractive 
girl who must be taken to a dance. A "sleuth" or 
"jimmylegs" is a night watchman, and to be "ragged" is 
to be caught. Mess-hall waiters are sometimes called 
"mokes," while at other times the names of certain ex- 
alted dignitaries of the Navy Department, or of the 
academy, are applied to them. 

I shall never cease to regret that dread of the cold kept 
us from seeing ancient Whitehall, a few miles from An- 
napolis, which was the residence of Governor Horatio 

78 



A RARE OLD TOWN 

Sharpe, and is one of the finest of historic American 
homes; nor shall I, on the other hand, ever cease to 
rejoice that, in spite of cold we did, upon another day, 
visit Hampton, the rare old mansion of the Ridgelys, of 
Maryland, which stands amid its own five thousand acres 
some dozen miles or so to the north of Baltimore. The 
Ridgelys were, it appears, the great Protestant land 
barons of this region as the Carrolls were the great 
Catholics, and, like the Carrolls, they remain to-day the 
proprietors of a vast estate and an incomparable house. 



79 




CHAPTER VIII 
WE MEET THE HAMPTON GHOST 

There 's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple ; 
If the ill spirit have so fair a house, 
Good things will strive to dwell with 't. 

— The Tempest. 

AMPTON is probably the largest of Maryland's 
~~dld mansions, and the beauty of it is more 
theatrical than the beauty of Doughoregan 
Manor; for although the latter is the older of the two, 
the former is not only spectacular by reason of its 
spaciousness, the delicacy of its architectural details, and 
the splendor of its dreamlike terraced gardens, but also 
for a look of beautiful, dignified, yet somehow tragic 
age — a look which makes one think of a wonderful old 
lady ; a belle of the days of minuets and powdered wigs 
and patches ; a woman no less wonderful in her declining 
years than in her youth, but wonderful in another way ; 
a proud old aristocrat, erect and spirited to the last; 
her bedchamber a storehouse of ivory lace and ancient 
jewelry, her memory a storehouse of recollections, like 
chapters from romantic novels of the days when all men 
were gallant, and all women beautiful : recollections of 
journeys made in the old coach, which is still in the 
stable, though its outriders have been buried in the 
slaves' burying ground these many years; recollections 

80 




!^ f'^'f -.^^^'-ira-- ■•■»►'»: -^ar W.^ ;♦!*■ ,, - ^ -v^ -jTATW -yj,,.^^ 



1 began to realize that there was no one coming; that no one had opened the door; 
that it had begun to swing immediately upon my saying the word "ghosts" 



WE MEET THE HAMPTON GHOST 

of the opening of Hampton, when, as the story goes, 
gay Captain Charles Ridgely, builder of the house, held a 
card party in the attic to celebrate the event, while his 
wife, Rebecca Dorsey Ridgely, a lady of religious turn, 
marked the occasion simultaneously with a prayer-meet- 
ing in the drawing room; of the ball given by the 
Ridgelys in honor of Charles Carroll's granddaughters, 
the exquisite Caton sisters; of hunt meets here, long, 
long ago, and hunt balls which succeeded them; of 
breakneck rides; of love-making in that garden peopled 
with the ghosts of more than a century of lovers ; of duels 
fought at dawn. Of such vague, thrilling tales the old 
house seems to whisper. 

Never, from the moment we turned into the tree-lined 
avenue, leading to Hampton, from the moment when I 
saw the fox hounds rise resentfully out of beds which 
they had dug in drifts of oak leaves in the drive, from 
the moment when I stood beneath the stately portico and 
heard the bars of the shuttered doors being flung back 
for our admittance — never, from my first glimpse of the 
place, have I been able to dispel the sense of unreality I 
felt while there, and which makes me feel, now, that 
Hampton is not a house that I have seen, but one built 
by my imagination in the course of a particularly charm- 
ing and convincing dream. 

Stained glass windows bearing the Ridgely coat of 
arms flank the front doorway, and likewise the opposing 
doorway at the end of the enormous hall upon which one 
enters, and the light from these windows gives the hall 

8i 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

a subdued yet glowing illumination, so that there is 
something spectral about the old chairs and the old por- 
traits with which the walls are solidly covered. There 
are portraits here by Gilbert Stuart and other distin- 
guished painters of times gone by, and I particularly 
remember one large canvas showing a beautiful young 
woman in evening dress, her hair hanging in curls be- 
side her cheeks, her tapering fingers touching the strings 
of a harp. She was young then ; yet the portrait is that 
of the great-grandmother, or great-great-grandmother, 
of present Ridgleys, and she has lain long in the brick- 
walled family burying ground below the garden. But 
there beneath the portrait stands the harp on which she 
played. 

One might tell endlessly of paneling, of the delicate 
carving of mantels and overmantels, of chairs, tables, 
desks, and sofas of Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Phyfe 
and Sheraton, yet giving such an inventory one might 
fail utterly to suggest the feeling of that great house, 
with its sense of homelike emptiness, its wealth of old 
furniture and portraits, blending together, in the dim 
light of a late October afternoon, to form shadowy 
backgrounds for autumnal reverie, or for silent, solitary 
listening — listening to the tales told by the soughing 
wind outside, to the whisper of embers in the fireplace, 
the slow somber tick of the tall clock telling of ages past 
and passing, the ghostly murmur of the old house talk- 
ing softly to itself. 

From the windows of the great dining-room one looks 

82 



WE MEET THE HAMPTON GHOST 

away toward Hampton Gate, a favorite meeting place 
for the Elkridge Hunt, or, at another angle, toward the 
stables where the hunters are kept, the old slave cabins, 
and the overseer's house, with its bell tower — a house 
nearly two hundred years old. But the library is per- 
haps the more natural resting place for the guest, and 
it looks out over the garden, with its enormous descend- 
ing terraces, its geometrical walks and steps, its beauti- / 
ful old trees, and arbors of ancient box. Such terraces/ 
as these were never built by paid labor. 

We were given tea in the library, our hostess at this 
function being a young lady of five or six years — a 
granddaughter of Captain John Ridgely, present master " 
of Hampton — who, with her pink cheeks, her serious, 
eyes and demeanor, looked like a canvas by Sir Joshua 
come to life, as she sat in a large chair and ate a large 
red apple. 

Nor did Bryan, Captain Ridgely's negro butler, fit 
less admirably into the pervasive atmosphere of fiction 
which enveloped the place. In the absence of his master, 
Bryan did the honors of the old house with a style which 
was not "put on," because it did not have to be put on — 
nature and a good bringing-up having supplied all needs 
in this respect. There was about him none of that 
affectation of being a graven image, which one so often 
notices in white butlers and footmen imported from Eu- 
rope by rich Americans, and which, of all shams, is one 
of the most false and absurd, as carried out on both 
sides — for we pretend to think these functionaries the 

83 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

deft mechanisms, incapable of thought, that they pre- 
tend to be ; yet all the time we know — and they know we 
know — that they see and hear and think as we do, and 
that, moreover, they are often enough observant cynics 
whose elaborate gentility is assumed for hire, like the 
signboard of a sandwich man. 

Bryan was without these artificial graces. His man- 
ner, in showing us the house, in telling us about the vari- 
ous portraits, indicated some true appreciation of the 
place and of its contents ; and the air he wore of natural 
dignity, and courtesy — of being at once acting-host and 
servitor — constituted as graceful a performance in a not 
altogether easy role as I have ever seen, and satisfied me, 
once for all, as to the verity of legends concerning the 
admirable qualities of old-time negro servants in the 
South. 

After tea, when fading twilight had deepened the 
shadows in the house, we went up the stairway, past the 
landing with its window containing the armorial bear- 
ings of the family in stained glass, and, achieving the 
upper hall, crossed to a great bedchamber, the principal 
guest room, and paused just inside the door. 

And now, because of what I am about to relate, I 
shall give the names of those who were present. We 
were: Dr. Murray P. Brush, A.B., Ph.D., acting Dean 
of Johns Hopkins University; Dr. John McF. Bergland 
of Baltimore; my companion, Wallace Morgan, illus- 
trator ; and myself. 

The light had, by this time, melted to a mere faint 

84 



WE MEET THE HAMPTON GHOST 

grayness sifting like mist through the many oblong 
panes of several large windows. Nevertheless I could 
discern that it was a spacious room, and from the 
color of it and certain shadowy lines upon the walls, I 
judged that it was paneled to the ceiling in white-painted 
wood. I am under the impression that it contained a 
fireplace, and that the great four-post bed, standing to 
the right of the doorway, was placed upon a low plat- 
form, a step or two above the floor — though of this I 
am not quite certain, the bulk of the bed and the dim 
light having, perhaps, deceived me. The rest of the 
furniture in the room was dark in color, and massed in 
heavy vague spots against the lighter background of 
the walls. 

Directly before the door, at about the center of the 
wall against which it was backed, stood something which 
loomed tall and dark, and which I took to be either a 
gigantic clothespress or a closet built into the room. 
Looking past the front of this obstruction, I saw one of 
the windows; the piece of furniture was therefore ex- 
hibited sidewise, in silhouette. 

I do not think that I had definitely thought of ghost 
stories before, and I know that ghosts had not been 
spoken of, but as I looked into this room, and reflected 
on the long series of persons who had occupied it, and on 
where they were now, and on all the stories that the 
room must have heard, there entered my mind thoughts 
of the supernatural. 

Having taken a step or two into the room, I was 

85 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

a little in advance of my three friends, and as these 
fancies came strongly to me, I spoke over my shoulder 
to one of them, who was at my right and a little behind 
me, saying, half playfully : 

"There ought to be ghosts in a room like this." 

Hardly had I spoken when without a sound, and 
swinging very slowly, the door of the large piece of 
furniture before me gently opened. My first idea was 
that the thing must be a closet, built against the wall, 
with a door at the back opening on a passageway, or 
into the next room, and that the little girl whom we had 
met downstairs had opened it from the other side and 
was coming in. 

I fully expected to see her enter. But she did not 
enter, for, as I learned presently, she was in the nursery 
at the time. 

After waiting for an instant to see who was coming, 
I began to realize that there was no one coming; that no 
one had opened the door ; that, like an actor picking up a 
cue, the door had begun to swing immediately upon my 
saying the word "ghosts." 

The appropriateness of the coincidence was striking. 
I turned quickly to my friends, who were in conversation 
behind me, and asked : 

"Speaking of ghosts — did you see that door open?" 

It is my recollection that none of them had seen it. 
Certainly not more than one of them had, for I remem- 
ber my feeling of disappointment that any one present 

86 



WE MEET THE HAMPTON GHOST 

should have missed so strange a circumstance. Some 
one may have asked what 1 had seen; at all events I 
was full of the idea, and, indicating the open door, I 
began to tell what I had seen, when — exactly as though 
the thing were done deliberately to circumstantiate my 
story — with the slow, steady movement of a heavy door 
pushed by a feeble hand, the other portal of the huge 
cabinet swung open. 

This time all four of us were looking. 

Presently, as we moved across the wide hall to go 
downstairs again, Bryan came from one of the other 
chambers, whither, I think, he had carried the young 
lady's supper on a tray. 

"Are there supposed to be any ghosts in this house?" I 
asked him. 

Bryan showed his white teeth in the semi-darkness. 
W^hether he believed in ghosts or not, evidently he did 
not fear them. 

"Yes, sir," he said. "We 're supposed to have a ghost 
here." 

"Where?" 

"In that room over there," he answered, indicating the 
bedroom from which we had come. 

We listened attentively to Bryan while he told how 
the daughter of Governor Swan had come to attend a 
ball at Hampton, and how she had died in the four-post 
bed in that old shadowy guest room, and of how, since 
then, she had been seen from time to time. 

87 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

"They 's several people say they saw her," he finished. 
*'She comes out and combs her hair in front of the long 
mirror." 

However, as we drove back to Baltimore that eve- 
ning, we repeatedly assured one another that we did not 
believe in ghosts. 



88 



CHAPTER IX 
ARE WE STANDARDIZED? 

ALMOST all modern European critics of the 
United States agree in complaining that our tele- 
phones and sleeping cars are objectionable, and 
that we are "standardized" in everything. Their 
criticism of the telephone seems to be that the state of 
perfection to which it has been brought in this country 
causes it to be widely used, while their disapproval of 
our sleeping cars is invariably based on the assumption 
that they have no compartments — which is not the fact, 
since most of the great transcontinental railroads do run 
compartment cars, and much better ones than the best 
wagons lits, and since, also, all our sleeping cars have 
drawing-rooms which are incomparably better than the 
most comfortable European compartments. 

The charge of standardization will, however, bear 
a little thought. It is true that most American cities 
have a general family resemblance — that a business 
street in Atlanta or Memphis looks much like a busi- 
ness street in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Buffalo, Milwaukee, 
St. Paul, Kansas City, or St. Louis — and that much the 
same thing may be said of residence streets. Houses 
and office buildings in one city are likely to resemble 

89 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

those of corresponding grade in another; the men who 
Hve in the houses and go daily to the offices are also 
similar; so are the trolley cars in which they journey 
to and fro ; still more so the Fords which many of them 
use ; the clothing of one man is like that of another, and 
all have similar conventions concerning the date at which 
— without regard to temperature — straw hats should be 
discarded. Their womenfolk, also, are more or less 
alike, as are the department stores in which they shop 
and the dresses they buy. And the same is true of their 
children, the costumes of those children, and the schools 
they attend. 

Every American city has social groups corresponding 
to similar groups in other cities. There is always the 
small, affluent group, made up of people who keep butlers 
and several automobiles, and who travel extensively. 
In this group there are always some snobs : ladies who 
give much time to societies founded on ancestry, and 
have a Junkerish feeling about ''social leadership." 

Every city has also its "fast" group: people who 
consider themselves "unconventional," who drink more 
than is good for them, and make much noise. Some 
members of this group may belong to the first group, 
as well, but in the fast group they have a follow- 
ing of well-dressed hangers-on: unmarried men and 
women, youngish rather than young, who, with little 
money, yet manage to dress well and to be seen eating 
and drinking and dancing in public places. There is 
usually to be found in this group a hectic widow or two 

90 



ARE WE STANDARDIZED? 

— be it grass or sod — and a few pretty girls who, hav- 
ing been given too much freedom at eighteen, begin 
to wonder, at twenty-eight, why, though they have al- 
ways been "good fellows," none of the dozens of men 
who take them about have married them. To this 
aggregation drift also those restless husbands and wives 
whose glances rove hopefully away from their mates, a 
few well-bred drunkards, and a few men and women 
who are trying to forget things they cannot forget. 

Then there is always the young married group — a 
nice group for the most part — living in comfortable new 
houses or apartments, and keeping, usually, both a small 
automobile and a baby carriage. They go to the Coun- 
try Club on Saturday nights, leave their motors stand- 
ing in the drive, eat a lukewarm supper that tastes like 
papier-mache, and dance themselves to wiltedness. 

Another group is entirely masculine, being made up 
of husbands of various ages, their mutual bond being 
the downtown club to which they go daily, and in which 
the subjects discussed are politics, golf, and the evils of 
prohibition. To. this group always belong the black- 
sheep husbands who, after taking their wives to the 
Country Club, disappear and remain away until they are 
sent for because it is time to go home, when they come 
back shamefaced and scented with Scotch. 

Every American city has also what Don Marquis 
calls its ''little group of serious thinkers" — women, most 
of them — possessed of an ardent desire to ''keep abreast 
of the times." These women belong to clubs and lit- 

91 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

erary societies which are more serious than war. They 
are always reading papers or attending lectures, and 
at these lectures they get a strange assortment of 
"cultural" information and misinformation, delivered 
with ghastly assurance by heterogeneous gentlemen in 
cutaway coats, who go about and spout for pay. If you 
meet these ladies, and they suspect you of being infested 
by the germs of "culture," they will open fire on you 
with a "thought," about which you may detect a curious 
ghostly fragrance, as of Alfred Noyes's lecture, last 
week, or of "the New Republic" or the "Literary Di- 
gest." The most "liberal" of them may even take "The 
Masses," precisely as people rather like them used to 
take "The Philistine," a generation or two ago. Among 
the members of this group are the women who work 
violently for suffrage — something in which I personally 
believe, but which, merely because I believe in it, I do 
not necessarily like to take in my coffee as a substitute 
for sugar, on my bread as a substitute for butter, and in 
my ear as a substitute for pleasant general conversation. 
I do not wish to seem to speak disparagingly of 
women of this type, for they are doing good, and they 
will do more good when they have become more accus- 
tomed to possessing minds. Having but recently dis- 
covered their minds, they are playing with them enthusi- 
astically, like children who have just discovered their 
new toys on Christmas morning. It is delightful to 
watch them. It is diverting to have them pop ideas at 
you with that bright-eyed, efficient, assertive look which 

92 



ARE WE STANDARDIZED? 

seems to say: "See! I am a liberal woman — a woman 
of the new type. 1 meet men on their own ground. Do 
you wish to talk of birth control, social hygiene, and sex 
attraction ? Or shall we reverse the order ? Or shall I 
show you how much I know about Brieux, and house- 
hold ejzonomics, and Ellen Key, and eugenics, and George 
Meredith, and post-impressionism, and ''Roberts' Rules 
of Order," and theosophy, and conditions in the Six- 
teenth Ward?" 

When one thinks of these city groups, and of mail- 
order houses, and Fords, one may begin to fear it is 
indeed true that we are becoming standardized, but 
when one lets one's mind drift over the country as 
the eye drifts over a map; when one thinks of the 
quantities of modest, thoughtful, gentle, generous, in- 
telligent, sound American families which are to be found 
in every city and every town, and thinks again, in a 
twinkling, of sheriffs and mining-camp policemen in 
the Far West, of boys going to Harvard, and other 
boys going to the University of Kansas, others to the 
old Southern universities, so rich in tradition, and still 
others to Annapolis or West Point ; when one thinks of 
the snow glittering on the Rocky Mountain wall, back of 
Denver ; of sleepy little towns drowsing in the sun beside 
the Mississippi ; of Charles W. Eliot of Cambridge, and 
Hy Gill of Seattle ; of Dr. Lyman Abbott of New York 
and Tom Watson of Georgia ; of General Leonard Wood 
and Colonel William Jennings Bryan; of ex-slaves liv- 
ing in their cabins behind Virginia manor houses, and 

93 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Filipino and Kanaka fishermen living in villages built 
on stilts beside the bayous below New Orleans; of the 
dry salt desert of Utah, and two great rivers meeting 
between green rocky hills, at Harper's Ferry; of men 
working in offices at the top of the Woolworth Building 
in New York, and other men working thousands of feet 
below the ground, in the copper mines of Butte and the 
iron and coal mines of Birmingham — when one thinks 
of these things one quickly ceases to fear that the United 
States is standardized, and instead begins to fear that 
few Americans will ever know the varied wonder of 
their country, and the varied character of its inhabit- 
ants, their problems, hopes, and views. 

If I lived somewhere in the region of Boston, New 
York, or Philadelphia and wished quickly to learn 
whether the country were really standardized or not, I 
should get into my automobile — or into some one else's 
— and take an autumn tour through Baltimore, past 
Doughoregan Manor, some miles to the west of Balti- 
more, on to Frederick, Maryland (where they dispute, 
quite justly, I believe, the truth of the Barbara Frietchie 
legend), and thence "over the mountain wall" and down 
into the northeastern corner of the most irregularly 
shaped State in the Union, West Virginia. I should 
strike for Harper's Ferry, and from there run to 
Charles Town, a few miles distant (where John Brown 
was tried and executed for the Harper's Ferry raid), 
and after circulating about that corner of the State, I 
should go down into Virginia by the good highway 

94 



ARE WE STANDARDIZED? 

which leads from Charles Town to Berryville — "Bur'- 
v'l," they pronounce it — and to "Winchester twenty 
miles away" (where they say that Sheridan's Ride was 
nothing to make such a lot of talk about!), and then 
back, by way of Berryville, and over the Blue Ridge 
Mountains into the great fox-hunting counties of Vir- 
ginia: Clark, Loudon, and Fauquier. Here I should 
see a hunt meet or a race meet. There are many other 
places to which I might go after that, but as I meant only 
to suggest an easy little tour, I shall stop at this point, 
contenting myself with saying that not far to the south 
is Charlottesville, where Jefferson built that most beau- 
tiful of all universities, the University of Virginia, and 
his wonderful house Monticello; that Staunton (pro- 
nounced as without the "u"), where Woodrow Wilson 
was born, lies west of Charlottesville, while Fredericks- 
burg, where Washington's mother lived, lies to the 
northeast. 

Some such trip as this I should take instead of a con- 
ventional New England tour. And before starting I 
should buy a copy of Louise Closser Hale's delightful 
book, "Into the Old Dominion." 

One beauty of the trip that I suggest is that it is n't all 
the same. In one place you get a fair country hotel, 
in another an inn, and somewhere along the way you 
may have to spend a night in a private house. Also, 
though the roads through Maryland, and the part of 
West Virginia I speak of, are generally good, my ex- 
perience of Virginia roads, especially through the moun- 

95 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

tains, leads me to conclude that in respect to high- 
ways Virginia remains a backward State. But who 
wants to ride always over oiled roads, always to hotels 
with marble lobbies, or big white porches full of hungry- 
eyed young women, and old ladies, knitting? Only the 
standardized tourist. And I am not addressing him. 

I am talking to the motorist who is not ossified in 
habit, who has a love of strangeness and the pictur- 
esque — not only in scenery but in houses and people and 
the kind of life those people lead. For it is quite true 
that, as Professor Roland C. Usher said in his "Pan 
Americanism," "the information in New York about 
Buenos Aires is more extended, accurate, and con- 
temporaneous than the notions in Maine about Ala- 
bama. . . . Isolation is more a matter of time than of 
space, and common interests are due to the ease of trans- 
portation and communication more often than geo- 
graphical location." 



96 



CHAPTER X 
HARPER'S FERRY AND JOHN BROWN 

Mad Old Brown, 
Osavvatomie Brown, 
With his eighteen other crazy men, went in and took the town. 

— Edmund Clarence Stedman, 

THREE States meet at Harper's Ferry, and the 
line dividing two of them is indicated where it 
crosses the station platform. If you alight at 
the rear end of the train, you are in Maryland; at the 
front, you are in West Virginia. This I like. I have 
always liked important but invisible boundaries — 
boundaries of states or, better yet, of countries. When 
I cross them I am disposed to step high, as though not 
to trip upon them, and then to pause with one foot in 
one land and one in another, trying to imagine that I 
feel the division running through my body. 

Harper's Ferry is an entrancing old town; a drowsy 
place, piled up beautifully, yet carelessly, upon ter- 
raced roads clinging to steep hills, which slope on one 
side to the Potomac, on the other to the Shenandoah, 
and come to a point, like the prow of a great ship, at the 
confluence of the two. 

There is something foreign in the appearance of the 
place. Many times, as I looked at old stone houses, 

97 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

a story or two high on one side, three or four stories on 
the other, seeming to set their claws into the chfifs and 
cling there for dear life, I thought of houses in Capri 
and Amalfi, and in some towns in France; and again 
there were low cottages built of blocks of shale covered 
with a thin veneer of white plaster showing the outlines 
of the stones beneath, which, squatting down amid their 
trees and flowers, resembled peasant cottages in Nor- 
mandy or Brittany, or in Ireland. 

It is a town in which to ramble for an hour, uphill, 
down and around; stopping now to delight in a crum- 
bHng stone wall, tied together with Kenilworth ivy; 
now to watch a woman making apple butter in a 
great iron pot; now to see an old negro clamber slowly 
into his rickety wagon, take up the rope reins, and start 
his skinny horse with the surprising words: "Come 
hither !" ; now to look at an old tangled garden, terraced 
rudely up a hillside ; now to read the sign, on a telegraph 
pole in the village, bearing the frank threat: "If you 
Hitch your Horses Here they will be Turned Loose." 
Now you will come upon a terraced road, at one side of 
which stands an old house draped over the rocks in such 
a way as to provide entrance from the ground level, on 
any one of three stories ; or an unexpected view down a 
steep roadway, or over ancient moss-grown housetops 
to where, as an old book I found there puts it, "between 
two ramparts, in a gorge of savage grandeur, the lordly 
Potomac takes to his embrace the beautiful Shenan- 
doah." 

98 



HARPER'S FERRY AND JOHN BROWN 

The liaison between the rivers, described in this 
Rabelaisian manner by the author of "The Annals of 
Harper's Ferry," has been going on for a long time with 
all the brazen publicity of a love scene on a park bench. 
I recommend the matter to the attention of the Society 
for the Suppression of Vice, which once took action 
to prohibit a novel by Mr. Theodore Dreiser. A great 
many people wish to read Mr. Dreiser's books yet no one 
has to read them if he does not want to. But it is a 
different matter with these rivers. Sensitive citizens of 
Harper's Ferry and pure-minded passengers on the 
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad are obliged daily to witness 
what is going on. 

Before the days of the Society for the Suppression of 
Vice, and of the late Anthony Comstock, when we had 
no one to make it clear to us exactly what was shock- 
ing, little was thought of the public scandal between 
the Potomac and the Shenandoah. Thomas Jefferson 
seems to have rather liked it ; there is a point above the 
town, known as Jefferson's Rock, at which, it is said, 
the author of the Declaration of Independence stood 
and uttered a sentiment about the spectacle. Every- 
body in Harper's Ferry agrees that Jefferson stood at 
Jefferson's Rock and said something appropriate, and 
any one of them will try to tell you what he said, but 
each version will be different. 

A young lady told me that he said: 'This view is 
worth a trip across the Atlantic Ocean." 

A young man in a blue felt hat of the fried-ees- 

99 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

variety said that Jefferson declared, with his well-known 
simplicity: "This is the grandest view I ever seen." 

An old man who had to go through the tobacco 
chewer's pre-conversational rite before replying to my 
question gave it as: "Pfst! — They ain't nothin' in 
Europe ner Switzerland ner nowheres else, I reckon', to 
beat this-here scenery." 

The man at the drug store quoted dift'erently alleging 
the saying to have been : "Europe has nothing on this" : 
whereas the livery stable man's version was : "This has 
that famous German river — the Rhine River don't they 
call it? — skinned to death." 

Whatever Jefferson's remark was, there has been 
added to the spectacle at Harper's Ferry, since his day, 
a new feature, which, could he have but seen it, must 
have struck him forcibly, and might perhaps have 
caused him to say more. 

At a lofty point upon the steep wall of Maryland 
Heights, across the Potomac from the town, far, far 
up upon the side of the cliff, commanding a view not only 
of both rivers, but of their meeting place and their joint 
course below, and of the lovely contours of the Blue 
Ridge Mountains, fading to smoky coloring in the re- 
mote distance, there has, of late years, appeared the out- 
line of a gigantic face, which looks out from its emplace- 
ment like some Teutonic god in vast effigy, its huge 
luxuriant mustaches pointing East and West as though 
in symbolism of the conquest of a continent. A blue 
and yellow background, tempered somewhat by the ele- 

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HARPER'S FERRY AND JOHN BROWN 

ments, serves to attract attention to the face and to the 
legend which accompanies it, but the thing one sees 
above all else, the thing one recognizes, is the face it- 
self, with its look half tragic, half resigned, yet always 
so inscrutable: for it is none other than the beautiful 
brooding countenance of Gerhard Mennen, the talcum- 
powder gentleman. 

The great story of Harper's Ferry is of course the 
John Brown story. Joseph I. C. Clarke, writing in the 
New York ''Sun" of Sir Roger Casement's execution 
for treason in connection with the Irish rebellion, com- 
pared him with John Brown and also with Don Quixote. 
The spiritual likeness between these three bearded fie- 
ures is striking enough. All were idealists; all were 
fanatics. Brown's ideal was a noble one — that of free- 
dom — but his manner of attempting to translate it into 
actuality was that of a madman. He believed not only 
that the slaves should be freed, but that the blood of 
slaveholders should be shed in atonement. In "bleed- 
ing Kansas" he led the Ossawatomie massacre, and 
committed cold-blooded murders under the delusion that 
the sword of the Lord was in his hand. 

In October, 1859, Brown, who had for some time been 
living under an assumed name in the neighborhood of 
Harper's Ferry, led a score of his followers, some of 
them negroes, in a surprise attack upon the Government 
arsenal at this place, capturing the watchmen and taking 
possession of the buildings. It was his idea to get the 



lOI 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

weapons the arsenal contained and give them to the 
slaves that they might rise and free themselves. Before 
this plan could be executed, however, Brown and his 
men were besieged in the armory, and here, after a day 
or two of bloody fighting, with a number of deaths on 
both sides, he was captured with his few surviving men, 
by Colonel (later General) Robert E. Lee, whose aide, 
upon this occasion, was J. E. B. Stuart, later the Con- 
federate cavalry leader. Stuart had been in Kansas, 
and it was he who recognized the leader of the raid as 
Brown of Ossawatomie. 

It is said that Brown's violent anti-slavery feeling was 
engendered by his having seen, in his youth, a colored 
boy of about his own age cruelly misused. He brooded 
over the wrongs of the blacks until, as some students of 
his life believe, he became insane on this subject. His 
utterances show that he was willing to give up his life 
and those of his sons and other followers, if by such 
action he could merely draw attention to the cause which 
had taken possession of his soul. In the course of the 
fighting he saw his two sons mortally wounded, and was 
himself stabbed and cut. Throughout the fight and his 
subsequent trial at Charles Town he remained imper- 
turbable; when taken to the gallows he sat upon his 
coffin, in a wagon, and he not only mounted the scaffold 
without a tremor, but actually stood there, apparently 
unmoved, for ten or fifteen minutes, with the noose 
around his neck, while the troops which had formed his 
escort were marched to their positions. 

1 02 



HARPER'S FERRY AND JOHN BROWN 

A large number of troops were present at the execu- 
tion, for it was then beheved in the South that the Brown 
raid was not the mere suicidal stroke of an individual 
fanatic, but an organized movement on the part of the 
Republican party ; an effort to rescue Brown was there- 
fore apprehended. This idea was later shown to be a 
fallacy. Brown having made his own plans, and been 
financed by a few northern friends, headed by Gerrit 
Smith of New York. 

There has been a tendency in the North to make a 
saint of John Brown, and in the South to make a devil 
of him. As a matter of fact he was a poor, misguided 
zealot, with a wild light in his eye, who had set out to 
do a frightful thing; for, bad though slavery was, its 
evils were not comparable with the horrors which would 
have resulted from a slave rebellion. 

It must be conceded, however, that those who would 
canonize John Brown have upon their side a strange and 
impressive piece of evidence. The jail where he was 
lodged in Charles Town and the courthouse where he 
was tried, still stand, and it is the actual fact that, when 
the snow falls, it always miraculously melts in a path 
which leads diagonally across the street from the one to 
the other. That this is true I have unimpeachable tes- 
timony. Snow will not stand on the path by which 
John Brown crossed back and forth from the jail to the 
court-house. There will be snow over all the rest of 
the street, but not on that path; there you can see it 
melting. 

103 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

But, as with certain other "miracles," this one is not 
so difficult to understand if you know how it is brought 
about. The courthouse is heated from the jail, and the 
hot pipes run under the pavement. 



104 



CHAPTER XI 
THE VIRGINIAS AND THE WASHINGTONS 

IN colonial times, and long thereafter, the present 
State of West Virginia was a part of Virginia. 
Virginia, in the old days, used to have no western 
borders to her most westerly counties, which, in theory, 
ran out to infinity. As the western part of the State 
became settled, county lines were drawn, and new 
counties were started farther back from the coast. For 
this reason, towns which are now in Jefferson County, 
West Virginia, used to be in that county of Virginia 
which lies to the east of Jefferson County, and some 
towns have been in several different counties in the 
course of their history. 

The people in the eastern part of West Virginia are, 
so far as I am capable of judging, precisely like Vir- 
ginians. The old houses, when built, were in Virginia, 
the names of the people are Virginian names, and cus- 
toms and points of view are Virginian. Until I went 
there I was not aware how very much this means. 

I do not know who wrote the school history I studied 
as a boy, but I do know now that it was written by a lop- 
sided historian, and that his ''lop," like that of many 
another of his kind, led him to enlarge upon American 

105 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

naval and military victories, to minimize American de- 
feats, to give an impression that the all-important early 
colonies w^ere those of New England, and that the all- 
Important one of them was Massachusetts. From this 
bias I judge that the historian was a Boston man. It 
takes a Bostonian to think in that way. They do it still. 

From my school history I gathered the idea that al- 
though Sir Walter Raleigh and Captain John Smith 
were so foolish as to dally more or less in the remote 
fastnesses of Virginia, and although there was a little 
ineffectual settlement at Jamestown, all the important 
colonizing of this country occurred in New England. I 
read about Peregrine White, but not about Virginia 
Dare; I read much of Miles Standish, but nothing of 
Christopher Newport; I read a great deal of the May- 
flower, but not a word of the Susan Constant. 

Yet Virginia Dare, if she lived, must have been near- 
ing young ladyhood when Peregrine White was born; 
Captain Christopher Newport passed the Virginia 
capes when Miles Standish was hardly more than a 
youth, in Lancashire; and the Susan Constant landed 
the Jamestown settlers more than a dozen years before 
the Mayflower landed her shipload of eminent furni- 
ture owners at Plymouth. Even Plymouth itself had 
been visited years before by John Smith, and it was he, 
not the Pilgrims, who named the place. 

I find that some boys, to-day, know these things. 
But though that fact is encouraging, I am not writing 
for boys, but for their comparatively ignorant parents. 

1 06 



VIRGINIAS AND WASHINGTONS 

Not only did the tirst English colony establish itself 
in Virginia, and the first known tobacco come from there 
— a point the importance of which cannot be overstated 
— but the history of the Old Dominion is in every way 
more romantic and heroic than that of any other State. 
The first popular government existed there long before 
the Revolution, and at the time of the break with the 
mother country Virginia was the most wealthy and 
populous of the Colonies. Some historians say that 
slavery was first introduced there when some Dutch- 
men sold to the colonists a shipload of negroes, but I 
believe this point is disputed. The Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was, of course, written by a Virginian, and 
made good by the sword of one. The first President of 
the United States was a Virginian, and so is the present 
Chief Executive. The whole of New England has pro- 
duced but four presidents; Ohio has produced six; but 
Virginia has given us eight. The first British army to 
land on this continent (Braddock's) landed in Virginia, 
and in that State our two greatest wars were terminated 
by the surrenders of Cornwallis and of Lee. And, last, 
the gallant Lee himself was a Virginian of the Virgini- 
ans — a son of the distinguished Henry Lee who said 
of Washington that he w^as "first in war, first in peace, 
and first in the hearts of his countrymen." 

On the pleasant drive of perhaps a dozen miles, from 
Harper's Ferry to Charles Town, I noticed here and 
there, at the roadside, pyramidal stones, suggesting 

107 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

monuments, but bearing no inscription save that each 
had a number. On inquiry I learned that these were 
indeed Confederate monuments, but that to find out 
what they marked it was necessary to go to the county 
courthouse at Charles Town and look up the numbers 
in a book, of which there is but one copy. These monu- 
ments were set out three or four years ago. They ap- 
peared suddenly, almost as though they had grown over- 
night, and many people wondered, as I had, what they 
meant. 

*'Eloise," one Charles Town young lady asked an- 
other, "what 's that monument out in front of your 
house with the number twenty-one on it?" 

*'0h," replied Eloise, "that 's where all my suitors are 
buried." 

One of the things which gives Jefiferson County, West 
Virginia, its Virginian flavor is the collection of fine 
old houses which adorn it. Many of these houses are 
the homes of families bearing the name of Washington, 
or having in their veins the blood of the Washingtons. 
It is said that there is more Washington blood in 
Charles Town (which, by the way, should not be con- 
fused with Charleston, capital of the same State), than 
in any other place, if not in all the rest of the world 
together. The nearest competitors to Charles Town in 
this respect are Westmoreland County, Virginia, and 
the town of Kankakee, Illinois, where resides the 
Spottswood Augustine Washington family, said to be 

1 08 



VIRGINIAS AND WASHINGTONS 

the only Washington group to have taken the Union 
side in the Civil War. It is rumored also that all the 
Washingtons are Democrats, although that fact is hard 
to reconcile, at the present time, with the statement that, 
among the five thousand of them, there is but a single 
Federal officeholder. 

The settling of the Washingtons in Jefferson County, 
West Virginia, came about through the fact that George 
Washington, when a youth of sixteen or seventeen, be- 
came acquainted with that part of what was then Vir- 
ginia, through having gone to survey for Lord Fair- 
fax, who had acquired an enormous tract of land in the 
neighboring county of Clarke, which is still in the 
mother State. To this estate, called Greenaway Court, 
his lordship, it is recorded, came from England to iso- 
late himself because a woman with whom he was in love 
refused to marry him. 

In this general neighborhood George Washington 
lived for three years, and local enthusiasts affirm that to 
his having drunk the lime-impregnated waters of this 
valley was due his great stature. The man who in- 
formed me of this theory had lived there aways. He 
was about five feet three inches tall, and had drunk the 
waters all his life — plain and otherwise. 

Washington's accounts of the region so interested his 
brothers that they finally moved there, acquired large 
tracts of land, and built homes. Charles Town, indeed, 
was laid out on the land of Charles Washington, and 
was named for him, and there is evidence that George 

109 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Washington, who certainly gave the hnes for the roads 
about the place, also laid out the town. 

Another brother, John Augustine, left a large family, 
while Samuel, the oldest, described as "a rollicking coun- 
try squire," was several years short of fifty when he 
died, but for all that had managed to marry five times 
and to find, nevertheless, spare moments in which to lay 
out the historic estate of Harewood, not far from 
Charles Town. It is said that George Washington was 
his brother's partner in this enterprise, but excepting 
in its interior, which is very beautiful, there is no 
sign, about the building, of his graceful architectural 
touch. 

George Washington spent much time at Harewood, 
Lafayette and his son visited there, and there the 
sprightly widow, Dolly Todd, married James Madison. 
This wedding was attended by President Washington 
and his wife and by many other national figures; the 
bride made the journey to Harewood in Jefferson's 
coach, escorted by Madison and a group of his friends 
on horseback, and history makes mention of a very large 
and very gay company. 

This is all very well until you see Harewood ; for, sub- 
stantial though the house is, with its two-foot stone 
walls, it has but five rooms: two downstairs and three 

up. 

Where did they all sleep? 

The question was put by the practical young lady 
whom I accompanied to Harewood, but the wife of the 

no 



VIRGINIAS AND WASHINGTONS 

farmer to whom the place is rented could only smile and 
shake her head. 

The bedroom now occupied by this farmer and his 
wife has doubtless been occupied also by the first Presi- 
dent of the United States and his wife, the fourth Presi- 
dent and his wife, by Lafayette, and by a King of France 
— for Louis-Philippe, and his brothers, the Due de 
Montpensier and the Comte de Beaujolais, spent some 
time at Harewood during their period of exile. 

Having read in an extract from the Baltimore "Sun" 
that Harewood, which is still owned in the Washington 
family, was a place in which all Washingtons took great 
and proper pride, that it was "the lodestone which draws 
the wandering Washingtons back to the old haunts," 
I was greatly shocked on visiting the house to see the 
shameful state of dilapidation into which it has been al- 
lowed to pass. The porches and steps have fallen down, 
the garden is a disreputable tangle, and the graves in 
the yard are heaped with tumble-down stones about 
which the cattle graze. The only parts of the building 
in good repair are those parts which time has not yet 
succeeded in destroying. The drawing-room, contain- 
ing a mantelpiece given to Washington by Lafayette, 
and the finest wood paneling I have seen in any Amer- 
ican house, has held its own fairly well, as has also 
the old stairway, imported by Washington from Eng- 
land. But that these things are not in ruins, like the 
porches, is no credit to the Washingtons who own the 
property to-day, and who, having rented the place, actu- 

III 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

ally leave family portraits hanging on the walls to crack 
and rot through the cold winter. 

If there are indeed five thousand Washingtons, and if 
they are proud of their descent, a good way for them to 
show it would be to contribute twenty-five cents each to be 
expended on putting Harewood in respectable condition. 

The last member of the Washington family to own 
Mount Vernon was John Augustine Washington, of 
Charles Town, who sold the former home of his distin- 
guished collateral ancestor. This Mr. Washington was 
a Confederate officer in the Civil War. He had a son 
named George, whose widow, if I mistake not, is the 
Mrs. George Washington of Charles Town, of whom I 
heard an amusing story. 

With another Charles Town lady this Mrs. Washing- 
ton went to the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and 
the two attended the Fair together on Washington Day. 
On this occasion Mrs. Washington made a purchase in 
one of the buildings, and ordered it sent to her home in 
Charles Town. 

''What name?" asked the clerk. 

"Mrs. George Washington." 

The clerk concluded that she was joking. 

'T want your real name," he insisted with a smile. 

"But," plaintively protested the gentle Mrs. Wash- 
ington, "that is the onlv name I have!" 

One of the most charming of the old houses in the 
neighborhood of Charles Town, and one of the few 

112 



VIRGINIAS AND WASHINGTONS 

which is still occupied by the descendants of its builder, 
is Piedmont, the residence of the Briscoe family. It is 
a brick house, nearly a century and a half old, with a 
lovely old portico, and it contains two of the most in- 
teresting relics I saw on my entire journey in the South. 
The first of these is the wall paper of the drawing-room, 
upon which is depicted, not in pattern, but in a series 
of pictures with landscape backgrounds, various scenes 
representing the adventures of Telemachus on his search 
for his father. I remember having seen on the walls 
of the parlor of an old hotel at South Berwick, Maine, 
some early wall paper of this character, but the pictures 
on that paper were done in various shades of gray, 
whereas the Piedmont wall paper is in many colors. 
The other relic is a letter which Mrs. Briscoe drew from 
her desk quite as though it had been a note received that 
morning from a friend. It was written on tough buff- 
colored paper, and, though the ink was brown \vith age, 
the handwriting was clear and legible and the paper 
was not broken at the folds. It was dated "Odiham, 
Sept. 1st, 1633," and ran as follows: 

To Dr. John Briscoe, Greetings. 

Dear Sir: As the Privy Council have decided that I shall 
not be disturbed or dispossessed of the charter granted by his 
Majesty — the Ark and Pinnace Dove will sail from Gravesend 
about the ist of October, and if you are of the same mind as 
when I conversed with you, I would be glad to have you join 
the colony. 

With high esteem, Your most obedient servant, 

Cecilius Baltimore. 

113 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

This letter from the second Lord Baltimore refers 
to the historic voyage which resulted in the first settle- 
ment of Maryland, thirteen years after the landing of 
the Pilgrims at Plymouth. As for Dr. Briscoe, to 
whom the letter was written, he was one of the three 
hundred original colonists, but after settling in St. 
Mary's, near the mouth of the Potomac, removed to the 
place where his descendants still reside. 

Farther out in Jefferson County the motorist may 
pass through two curious hamlets which, though not 
many miles from Charles Town, have the air of being 
completely removed from the world. One of these was 
known, many years ago, as Middleway, and later as 
Smithfield, but is now called Clip — and for a curious 
reason. 

When the stagecoaches were running, the town was 
quite a place, as its several good old houses indicate; 
but the railroads, when they were built, ignored the 
town, but killed the stage lines, with the result that the 
little settlement dried up. Even before this an old plas- 
ter-covered house, still standing, became haunted. The 
witches who resided in it developed the unpleasant cus- 
tom of flying out at night and cutting pieces from the 
clothing of passers-by. And that is how the town came 
to be called Clip. 

A century or so ago, when the rudeness of the witches 
had long annoyed the inhabitants of Clip, and had 
proved very detrimental to their clothing, a Roman 
Catholic priest came along and told them that if they 

114 



VIRGINIAS AND WASHINGTONS 

would give him a certain field, he would rid them of 
the evil spirits. This struck the worthy citizens of 
Clip as a good bargain; they gave the priest his field 
(it is still known as the Priest's Field, and is now used 
as a place for basket picnics) and forthwith the opera- 
tions of the witches ceased. So, at least, the story 
goes. 

Not far beyond Clip lies the hamlet of Leetown, tak- 
ing its name from that General Charles Lee who com- 
manded an American army in the Revolutionary War, 
but who was suspected by Washington of being a trai- 
tor, and vv^as finally court-martialed and cashiered from 
the army. The old stone house which Lee built at Lee- 
town, and in which he lived after his disgrace, still re- 
mains. Instead of having partitions in his house the 
old general lived in one large room, upon the floor of 
which he made chalk marks to indicate different cham- 
bers. Here he dwelt surrounded by innumerable dogs, 
and here he was frequently visited by General's Horatio 
Gates and Adam Stephen, who were neighbors and 
cronies of his, and met at his house to drink wine and 
exchange stories. 

It is said that upon one of these occasions Lee got up 
and declared : 

"The county of Berkeley is to be congratulated upon 
having as citizens three noted generals of the Revolu- 
tion, each of whom was ignominiously cashiered. You, 
Stephen, for getting drunk when you should have been 
sober ; you, Gates, for advancing when you should have 

115 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

retreated ; and your humble servant for retreating when 
he should have advanced." 

Lee was a turbulent, insubordinate, hard-drinking 
rascal, and nothing could be more characteristic than the 
will, written in his own handwriting, filed by the old 
reprobate with the clerk of the Berkeley County Court, 
and expressing the following sentiments : 

I desire most earnestly that I may not be buried in any church 
or churchyard, or within a mile of any Presbyterian or Ana- 
baptist meeting house, for since I have resided in this county I 
have kept so much bad company when living that I do not desire 
to continue it when dead. 

During Lee's life there, Leetown was probably a live- 
lier place than it is to-day. Something of its present 
state may be gathered from the fact that when a lady 
of my acquaintance stopped her motor there recently, 
and asked some men what time it was, they stared 
blankly at her for a moment, after which one of them 
said seriously: 

'*We don't know. We don't have time here." 



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"^iV^ 



CHAPTER XTI 
I RIDE A HORSE 

And vaulted with such ease into his seat 

As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds, 

To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus 

And witch the world with nohle horsemanship. 

— King Henry IV. 

CLAYMONT COURT, near Charles Town, the 
house in which my companion and I were so 
fortunate as to be guests during our visit to 
this part of the country, is one of the old Washington 
houses, having been built by Bushrod Corbin Washing- 
ton, a nephew of the first President. It is a beautiful 
brick building, with courts at either end, the brick walls 
of which, connecting with the house, extend its lines 
with peculiar grace, and tie to the main structure the 
twin buildings which balance it, according to the de- 
lightful fashion of early Virginia architecture. The 
hexagonal brick tile of the front walk at Claymont 
Court, and the square stone pavement of the portico, 
resemble exactly those at Mount Vernon, and are said 
to have been imported at the same time ; and it is believed 
also that the Claymont box trees were brought over with 
those growing at Moimt Vernon. 

The estate was sold out of the Washington family 

117 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

in 1870, when it was acquired by a Colonel March, who 
later sold it to a gentleman whose wild performances 
at Claymont are not only remembered, but are com- 
memorated in the house. In the cellar, for instance, 
bricked up in a room barely large enough to hold it, 
whence it cannot be removed except by tearing down a 
heavy wall, stands a huge carved sideboard to which 
the young man took a dislike, and which he therefore 
caused to be carried to the cellar and immured, despite 
the protests of his family. It is said that upon another 
occasion he conceived the picturesque idea of riding his 
horse upstairs and hitching it to his bedpost; and that 
he did so is witnessed by definite marks of horseshoes 
on the oak treads of the stair. Later Frank R. Stock- 
ton purchased the place, and there he wrote his story 
"The Captain of the Toll-Gate," which was published 
posthumously. 

But in all its history this glorious old house has never 
been a happier home, or a more interesting one, than it 
is to-day. For now it is the residence of four young 
ladies, sisters, who, because of their divergent tastes 
and their complete congeniality, continually suggest the 
fancy that they have stepped out of a novel. One of 
them is the Efficient Sister, who runs the automobile 
and the farm of two or three hundred acres, sells the 
produce, keeps the accounts, and pays off the men; an- 
other is the Domestic Sister, who conducts the ad- 
mirable menage ; another is the Sociological and Artistic 
Sister, who draws and plays and thinks about the 

118 



I RIDE A HORSE 

masses; while the fourth is the Sprightly Sister Who 
Likes to Dance. 

Never had my companion or I seen a more charm- 
ing, a more varied household, an establishment more 
self-contained, more complete in all things from vege- 
tables to brains. No need to leave the place for any- 
thing. Yet if one wished to look about the country, 
there was the motor, and there were the saddle horses 
in the stable — all of them members of old Virginian 
families — and there were four equestrian young ladies. 

"Would you-all like to ride to-day?" one of the sisters 
asked us at breakfast. 

To my companion, horseback riding is comparatively 
a new thing. He had taken it up a year before — partly 
because of appeals from me, partly because of changes 
which he had begun to notice in his topography. Com- 
pared with him I was a veteran horseman, for it was 
then a year and three months since I had begun my rid- 
ing lessons. 

I said that I would like to ride, but he declared that he 
must stay behind and make a drawing. 

Sometimes, in the past, I had thought I would pre- 
fer to make my living as a painter or an illustrator than 
as a writer, but at this juncture it occurred to me that, 
though the writer's medium of expression is a less 
agreeable one than that of the graphic artist, it is much 
pleasanter to ride about with pretty girls than to sit 
alone and draw a picture of their house. I began to 
feel sorry for my companion: the thought of our rid- 

119 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

ing gaily off, and leaving him at work, made him seem 
pathetic. My appeals, however, made no impression 
upon his inflexible sense of duty, and I soon ceased try- 
ing to persuade him to join us, and began to speculate, 
instead, as to whether all four sisters would accompany 
me, or whether only two or three of them would go — 
and if so, which. 

"What kind of horse do you like?" asked one. 

Such a question always troubles me. It is embar- 
rassing. Imagine saying to a young lady who likes to 
ride thoroughbred hunters across fields and over ditches 
and fences: 'T should like a handsome horse, one that 
will cause me to appear to advantage, one that looks 
spirited but is in reality tame." 

Such an admission would be out of character with the 
whole idea of riding. One could hardly make it to one's 
most intimate male friend, let alone to a girl who knows 
all about withers and hocks and pastern joints, and 
talks about "paneled country," and takes the "Racing 
Calendar." 

To such a young lady it is impossible to say: "I 
have ridden for a little more than a year; the horses 
with which I am acquainted are benevolent creatures 
from a riding school near Central Park ; they go around 
the reservoir twice, and return automatically, and they 
sigh deeply when one mounts and again when one gets 
off." 

No; that sort of thing will not do at all ; for the horse 
— besides having been placed in a position more aristo- 

I20 



I RIDE A HORSE 

cratic than ever, through the philanthropies of Henry 
Ford — is essentially "sporty." You must be a "sport" 
or you must keep away from him. You must approach 
him with dash or you must not approach him at all. 
And when a young lady inquires what kind of horse you 
like, there is but one way to reply. 

"It does n't matter at all," I answered. "Any horse 
will do for me." Then, after a little pause, I added, as 
though it were merely an amusing afterthought: "I 
suppose I shall be stiff after my ride. I have n't been on 
a horse in nearly two months." 

"Then," said the sympathetic young lady, "you '11 
want an easy ride." 

"I suppose it might be more sensible," I conceded. 

"Better give him the black mare," put in the Efficient 
Sister. 

"She hasn't been out lately," said the other. "You 
know how she acts when she has n't been ridden enough. 
He might not know just how to take her. I was think- 
ing of giving him 'Dr. Bell.' " 

"Dr. Bell 's too gentle," said the Efficient Sister. 

"Which horse do you think you'd like?" the other 
asked me. "Dr. Bell has plenty of life, but he 's gen- 
tle. The black mare 's a little bit flighty at first, but if 
you can ride her she soon finds it out and settles down." 

I want to ask: "What happens if she finds out that 
you can't ride her? What does she do then?" But I 
refrained. 

"She 's never thrown anybody but a stable boy and 

121 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

a man who came up here to visit — and neither one of 
them could ride worth a cent," said the Efficient Sister. 

Meanwhile I had been thinking hard. 

"What color is Dr. Bell?" I asked. 

"He 's a sorrel." 

"Then," I said, "I believe I 'd rather ride Dr. Bell. 
I don't like black horses. It is simply one of those pecul- 
iar aversions one gets." 

They seemed to accept this statement, and so the mat- 
ter was agreeably settled. 

When, at ten o'clock, I came down dressed for rid- 
ing, my companion was out in front of the house, mak- 
ing a drawing ; the four young ladies were with him, all 
seemingly enchanted with his work, and none of them in 
riding habits. 

"Who 's going with me?" I asked as I strolled toward 
them. 

They looked at one another inquiringly. Then the 
Efficient Sister said: "I 'd like to go, but this is pay 
day and I can't leave the place." 

"I have to go to town for some supplies," said the 
Domestic Sister. 

"I want to stay and watch this," said the Sociological 
and Artistic Sister. (She made a gesture toward 
my companion, but I think she referred to his draw- 
ing.) 

"I 'm going away to a house party," said the Sprightly 
Sister who Likes to Dance. "I must pack." 

"You can't get lost," said the Domestic Sister. 

122 



I RIDE A HORSE 

"Even if you should," put in the Efficient Sister, "Dr. 
Bell would bring you home." 

During this conversation my companion did not look 
up "from his work, neither did he speak; yet upon his 
back there was an expression of derisive glee which 
made me hope, vindictively, that he would smudge his 
drawing. However inscrutable his face, I have never 
known a man with a back so expressive. 

"Here comes Dr. Bell," remarked the Sociological 
and Artistic Sister, as a negro groom appeared leading 
the sorrel steed, 

"Well," I said, trying to speak debonairely as I 
started toward the drive, "I '11 be going." 

I wished to leave them where they were and go 
around to the other side of the house to mount. I had 
noticed a stone block there and meant to use it if no one 
but the groom were present; also I intended to tip the 
groom and ask him a few casual questions about the 
ways of Dr. Bell. 

I might have managed this but for a sudden mani- 
festation of interest on the part of my companion. - 

"Come on," he said to the young ladies, "let 's go 
and see him off." It seemed to me that he emphasized 
the word "off" unpleasantly. However I tried to seem 
calm as we moved toward the drive. 

Dr. Bell had a bright brown eye; there was some- 
thing alert in the gaze with which he watched us mov- 
ing toward him. However, to my great relief he stood 
quite still while two of the sisters who preceded me by 

123 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

a few steps, went up and patted him. Evidently he Hked 
to be patted. I decided that I would pat him also. 

I had approached him from the left and in order to 
mount I now found it necessary to circle around, in 
front of him. I was determined that if the horse would 
but remain stationary I should step up to him, speak to 
him, give him a quick pat on the neck, gather the reins 
in my hand, place my foot swiftly in the stirrup, take 
a good hop, and be on his back before any one had time 
to notice. 

Dr. Bell, however, caused me to alter these plans; 
for though he had stood docile as a dog while the sis- 
ters patted him, his manner underwent a change on sight 
of me. I do not think this change was caused by any 
personal dislike for me. I believe he would have done 
the same had any stranger appeared before him in rid- 
ing boots. The trouble was, probably, that he had ex- 
pected to be ridden by one of the young ladies, and was 
shocked by the abrupt discovery that a total stranger 
was to ride him. This is merely my surmise. I do not 
claim deep understanding of the mental workings of 
any horse, for there is no logic about them or their 
performances. They are like crafty lunatics, reason- 
ing, if they reason at all, in a manner too treacherous 
and devious for human comprehension. Their very 
usefulness, the service they render man, is founded on 
their own folly ; were it not for that, man could not even 
catch them, let alone force them to submit, like weak- 
minded giants, to his will. 

124 







5? 



I RIDE A HORSE 

The fact is that, excepting barnyard fowls, the horse 
is the most idiotic of all animals, and, pound for pound, 
even the miserable hen is his intellectual superior. In- 
deed, if horses had brains no better than those of hens, 
but proportionately larger, they would not be drawing 
wagons, and carrying men upon their backs, but would 
be lecturing to women's clubs, and holding chairs in uni- 
versities, and writing essays on the Development of the 
Short Story in America. 

Horse lovers, who are among the most prejudiced of 
all prejudiced people, and who regard horses with an 
amiable but fatuous admiration such as young parents 
have for their babies, will try to tell you that these 
great creatures which they love are not mentally de- 
ficient. Ask them why the horse, with his superior 
strength, submits to man, and they will tell you that the 
horse's eye magnifies, and that, to the horse, man con- 
sequently appears to be two or three times his actual 
size. 

Nonsense! There is but one reason for the yielding 
of the horse: he is an utter fool. 

Everything proves him a fool. He will charge into 
battle, he will walk cheerfully beside a precipice, he 
will break his back pulling a heavy wagon, or break 
his leg or his neck in jumping a hurdle; yet he will go 
into a frenzy of fright at the sight of a running child, 
a roadside rock, or the shadow of a branch across the 
path, and not even a German chancellor could shy as he 
will at a scrap of paper. 

125 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

As I passed in front of Dr. Bell he rolled his eyes at 
me horribly, and rose upon his hind legs, almost up- 
setting the groom as he went up and barely missing him 
with his fore feet as he brought them to earth again. 

"What's the matter with him?" I asked, stop- 
ping. 

"I guess he just feels good," said the Efficient Sister. 

"Yassuh, tha 's all," said the groom cheerfully. 
"He 's aw' right. Gentle ath a lamb." 

As he made this statement, I took another step in the 
direction of the horse, whereat he reared again. 

"Well, now!" said the groom, patting Dr. Bell upon 
the neck. "Feelin' pretty good 's mawnin', is you? 
There, there!" 

Dr. Bell, however, paid little attention to his attend- 
ant, but gazed steadily at me with an evil look. 

"Does he always do like that?" I asked the Domestic 
Sister. 

'T never saw him do it before," she said. 

"Maybe he does n't admire the cut of your riding 
breeches," suggested my companion. 

"Oh, no, suh," protested the groom. "It 's jes' his 
li'l way tryin' t' tell you he likes de ladies t' ride him 
better 'n he likes de gemmen." 

"He means he doesn't want me to ride him?" 

"Yassuh, da 's jes' his li'l idee 't he 's got now. He 
be all right once you in de saddle." 

"But how am I to get in the saddle if he keeps doing 

that?" 

126 



I RIDE A HORSE 

"I hold 'im all right," said the groom. "You jes' get 
on 'im, suh. He soon find out who 's boss." 

"I think he will," said my heartless companion. 

"Nevvah you feah, suh," the man said to me. *'Ah 
knowed the minute Ah saw yo' laigs 't you was a horse- 
man. Yassuh! Ah says t' ole Gawge, Ah says, 'Dat 
gemman 's certain'y been 'n de cava'ry, he has, wid dem 
fine crooked laigs o' hisn.' " 

"You should have told that to Dr. Bell, instead," sug- 
gested my companion. 

At this every one laughed. Even the groom laughed 
a wheezy, cackling negro laugh. The situation was 
becoming unbearable. Clearly I must try to mount. 
Perhaps I should not succeed, but I must try. As I 
was endeavoring to adjust my mind to this unpleasant 
fact the Efficient Sister spoke. 

"That horse is going to be ridden," she said firmly, 
"if I have to go upstairs and dress and ride him my- 
self." 

That settled it. 

"Now you hold him down," I said to the groom, and 
stepped forward. 

As I did so Dr. Bell reared again, simultaneously 
drawing back sidewise and turning his flank away from 
me, but this time the Efficient Sister hit him with a crop 
she had found somewhere, and he came down hastily, 
and began to dance a sort of double clog with all four 
feet. 

After several efiforts I managed to get beside him. 

127 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Gathering the reins in my left hand I put my foot up 
swiftly, found the stirrup, and with a hop, managed to 
board the beast. 

As I did so, the groom let him go. Both stirrups 
were short, but it was too late to discuss that, for by 
the time I was adjusted to my seat we had traveled, 
at a run, over a considerable part of the lawn and 
through most of the flowerbeds. The shortness of the 
stirrups made me bounce, and I had a feeling that I 
might do better to remove my feet from them entirely, 
but as I had never ridden without stirrups I hesitated 
to try it now. Therefore I merely dug my knees des- 
perately into the saddle flaps and awaited what should 
come, while endeavoring to check the animal. He, 
however, kept his head down, which not only made it 
difiicult to stop him, but also gave me an unpleasant 
sense as of riding on the cowcatcher of a locomotive 
with nothing but space in front of me. Once, with a 
jerk, I managed to get his head up, but when I did that 
he reared. I do not care for rearing. 

To add to my delight, one of the dogs now ran out 
and began to bark and circle around us, jumping up at 
the horse's nose and nipping at his heels. This brought 
on new activities, for now Dr. Bell not only reared but 
elevated himself suddenly behind, to kick at the dog. 
However, there was one good result. We stopped run- 
ning and began to trot rapidly about in circles, dodging 
the dog, and this finally brought us back toward the 

house. 

128 



I RIDE A HORSE 

"My stirrups are too short!'' I shouted to the groom. 

"Ride oveh heah, suh," he called back. 

I tried to do it, but Dr. Bell continued to move in 
circles. At last, however, the man managed to catch us 
by advancing with his hand extended, as though offering 
a lump of sugar, at the same time talking gently to my 
steed. Then, while my companion held the bit the 
negro adjusted the stirrup leathers. I was glad of the 
breathing spell. I wished that it took longer to adjust 
stirrups. 

"You 'd better go out by the drive this time," said the 
Efficient Sister. 

"I intended to before," I told her, "but he did n't seem 
to understand the signals." 

"You 've got spurs on. Give him the spur." 

As a matter of fact, I had hesitated to give him the 
spur. It seemed to me that he was annoyed with me 
anyway, and that the spur would only serve to increase 
his prejudice. I wanted to rule him not by brute force 
but by kindness. I wished that I could somehow make 
him know that I was a regular subscriber to the S. P. 
C. A., that I loved children and animals and all helpless 
creatures, both great and small, that I used the dumb 
brutes gently and only asked in return that they do the 
same by me. But how is one to communicate such 
humanitarian ideas to a big, stupid, wilful, perverse, 
diabolical creature like a horse? 

I was determined that when we started again we 
should not run over the lawn if I could possibly pre- 

129 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

vent it. Therefore I had the groom head the horse 
down the drive, and the moment he released him, I 
touched Dr. Bell with the spurs. The result was 
magical. He started on a run but kept in the road 
where I wanted him to be, giving me, for the moment, a 
sense of having something almost like control over him. 
At the foot of the drive was a gate which I knew could 
be opened without dismounting, by pulling a rope, and 
as no horse, unless quite out of his mind, will deliberately 
run into a gate, I had reason to hope that Dr. Bell would 
stop when he got there. Imagine my feelings, then, 
when on sight of the gate he not only failed to slacken 
his pace, but acutally dashed at it faster than ever. 
Within a few feet of the barrier he seemed to pause 
momentarily, hunching himself in a peculiar and alarm- 
ing manner : then he arose, sailed through the air like a 
swallow, came down beyond like a load of trunks falling 
off from a truck, and galloped down the highway, seem- 
ingly quite indifferent to the fact that the stirrups were 
flapping at his sides and that I had moved from the 
saddle to a point near the base of his neck. 

My position at the moment was one of considerable 
insecurity. By holding on to his mane and wriggling 
backward I hoped to stay on, provided he did not put 
down his head. If he did that, I was lost. Fortu- 
nately for me, however, Dr. Bell did not realize with 
what ease he could have dropped me at that moment, 
and by dint of cautious but eager gymnastics, I man- 
aged to regain the saddle and the stirrups, although in 

130 



I RIDE A HORSE 

doing so I pricked him several times with the spurs, with 
the result that, though he ran faster than ever for a 
time, he must have presently concluded that I did n't 
care how fast he went; at all events, he slackened his 
pace to a canter, from which, shortly, I managed to 
draw him down to a trot and then to a walk. 

I am glad to say that not until now had we met any 
vehicle. Even while he was running, even while I was 
engaged in maintaining a precarious seat upon his neck, 
I had found time to hope fervently that we should not 
encounter an automobile. I was afraid that he would 
jump it if we did. 

Now, however, I saw a motor approaching. Dr. Bell 
saw it, too, and pricked up his ears. Seizing the reins 
firmly in one hand, I waved with the other, signalling to 
the motorist to stop, which he did, pulling out into the 
ditch. Meanwhile I talked to Dr. Bell, patting him on 
the neck and telling him to go on and not to be afraid, 
because it was all right. Dr. Bell did go on. He went 
up to the front of the motor, past the side of it, and 
on behind it, without showing the least sign of alarm. 
He did not mind it at all. But the man in the motor 
minded. Annoyed with me for having stopped him un- 
necessarily, he shouted something after me. But I paid 
no attention to him. Under the circumstances, it 
seemed the only thing to do. I might have gotten off; 
I might conceivably have beaten him ; but I never could 
have held the horse while doing it, or have gotten on 
again. 

^31 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Presently, when I was changing the position of the 
reins, which were hurting my fingers because I had 
gripped them so tight, I accidentally shifted the gears 
in some way, so to speak, sending Dr. Bell off at a pace 
which was neither a trot nor a canter, but which carried 
us along at a sort of smooth, rapid glide. At first I took 
this gait to be a swift trot, and attempted to post to it ; 
then, as that did not work, I sat still in the saddle and, 
finding the posture comfortable, concluded that Dr. Bell 
must be single-footing. I had never single-footed be- 
fore. Just as I was beginning to like it, however, he 
changed to a trot, then back to single-footing again, and 
so on, in a curious puzzling manner. 

Except for the changes of gait, we were now going on 
rather well, and I had begun, for the first time, to feel 
a little security, when all of a sudden he swerved off 
and galloped with me up a driveway leading toward a 
white house which stood on a hill two or three hundred 
yards from the road. Again I tried to stop him, but 
when I pulled on the reins he shook his head savagely 
from side to side and snorted in a loud and threatening 
manner. 

As we neared the house I saw that two ladies were sit- 
ting on the porch regarding our approach with interest. 
I hoped that Dr. Bell would fmd some way of keeping 
on past the house and into the fields, but he had no such 
intention. Instead of going by, he swung around the 
circle before the porch, and stopped at the steps, upon 
which the two ladies were sitting. 

132 



I RIDE A HORSE 

One of them was a white-haired woman of gentle 
mien; the other was a girl of eighteen or twenty with 
pretty, mischievous eyes. 

Both the ladies looked up inquiringly as Dr. Bell and 
I stopped. 

I lifted my hat. It was the only thing I could think of 
to do at the moment. At this they both nodded gravely. 
Then we sat and stared at one another. 

"Well?" said the old lady, when the silence had be- 
come embarrassing. 

I felt that I must say something, so I remarked : 

'This is a very pretty place you have here." 

At this, though the statement was quite true, they 
looked perplexed. 

"Is there any message?" asked the young woman, 
after another pause. 

"Oh, no," I answered Hghtly. "I was riding by and 
thought I 'd take the liberty of coming up and telling 
you — telling you that although I am a Northerner and a 
stranger here, I love the South, the quaint old South- 
ern customs, the lovely old houses, the delicious waffles, 
the—" 

'That is very gratifying," said she "I am sorry to say 
we are all out of waffles at present." 

"Oh, I don't want any now," I replied politely. 

"Well, if you don't mind my asking, what do you 
want?" 

"I want," I said, desperately, "to see your groom for a 
moment, if possible." 

133 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

"He 's gone to town," she replied. "Is there anything 
I can do? I see that your stirrup leather is twisted." 
With that she arose, came down, removed my foot from 
the stirrup, in a businesslike manner, reversed the iron, 
and put my foot back for me. 

I thanked her. 

"Anything else?" she asked, her wicked eye twink- 
ling. 

"Perhaps," I ventured, "perhaps you know how to 
make a horse single-foot?" 

"There are different ways," she said. "With Dr. Bell 
you might try using the curb gently, working it from 
side to side." 

"I will," I said. "Thank you very much." 

"And," said the girl, "if he ever takes a notion to bolt 
with you, or to go up to some house where you don't 
want him to go, just touch him with the curb. That 
will fix him. He 's very soft-bitted." 

"But I tried that," I protested. 

She looked at my reins, then shook her head. 

"No," she said, "you Ve got your curb rein and your 
snaffle rein mixed." 

"I am very much indebted to you," I said, as I changed 
the position of the reins between my fingers. 

"Not at all," said she. " I hope you '11 get safely back 
to the Claymont. If you want to jump him, give him 
his head. He '11 take off all right." 

"Thanks," I returned. "I don't want to jump him." 

Then lifting my hat and thanking her again, I wiggled 

134 



I RIDE A HORSE 

the curb gently from side to side, as directed, and de- 
parted, singlefooting comfortably. 

Dr. Bell and I got home very nicely. He wanted to 
jump the gate again, but I checked him with the curb. 
After pulling the rope to open the gate I must have got 
the reins mixed once more, for as I was nearing the 
house, calm in the feeling that I had mastered the ani- 
mal, and intent upon cantering up to the porch in fine 
style. Dr. Bell swerved suddenly oft" to the stable, went 
into the door, and, before I could stop him, entered his 
stall. 

There I dismounted in absolute privacy. It was 
quite easy. I had only to climb on to the partition and 
drop down into the next stall, which, by good fortune, 
was vacant. 

With a single exception, this was the only riding I did 
in the South, and on the one other occasion of which I 
speak I did not ride alone, but had, surrounding me, the 
entire Eleventh United States Cavalry. 



135 



CHAPTER XIII 
INTO THE OLD DOMINION 

WHEN two men are traveling together on an 
equal footing, and it becomes necessary to 
decide between two rooms in a hotel, how 
is the decision to be made? Which man is to take the 
big, bright corner room, and which the little room that 
faces on the court and is fragrant of the bakery below ? 
Or again, which man shall occupy the lower berth in a 
Pullman drawing-room, and which shall try to sleep 
upon the shelf-like couch? Or when there is but one 
lower left, which shall take the upper? If an extra 
kit bag be required for the use of both, who shall pay 
for it and own it at the journey's end? Who shall pay 
for this meal and who for that? Or yet again, if there 
be but one cheap heavy overcoat in a shop, and both de- 
sire to own that coat, which one shall have the right of 
purchase? Who shall tip the bell boy for bringing up 
the bags, or the porter for taking down the trunks? 
Who shall take home from a dance the girl both want 
to take, and who shall escort the unattractive one who 
resides in a remote suburb? 

Between two able-bodied men there is no uncomfort- 
able complication of politeness in such matters. On a 
brief journey there might be, but on a long journey the 

136 



INTO THE OLD DOMINION 

thin veil of factitious courtesy is cast aside ; each wants 
his fair share of what is best and makes no pretense to 
the contrary. 

Upon our first long journey together, some years ago, 
my companion and I established a custom of settling 
all such questions by matching coins, and we have main- 
tained this habit ever since. Upon the whole it has 
worked well. We have matched for everything except 
railroad fares and hotel bills, and though fortune has 
sometimes favored one or the other for a time, I be- 
lieve that, had we kept accounts, we should find our- 
selves to-day practically even. 

Our system of matching has some correlated customs. 
Now and then, for instance, when one of us is unlucky 
and has been "stuck" for a series of meals, the other, in 
partial reparation, will declare a "party." Birthdays 
and holidays also call for parties, and sometimes there 
will be a party for no particular reason other than that 
we feel like having one. 

Two of our parties on this journey have been given in 
the basement cafe of the Shoreham Hotel in Washing- 
ton. Both were supper parties. The first I gave in 
honor of my companion, for the reason that we both like 
the Shoreham cafe, and that a party seemed to be about 
due. That party brought on the other, which occurred 
a few nights later and was given by us jointly in honor 
of a very beautiful and talented young actress. And 
this one, we agree, was, in a way, the most amusing of 
all the parties we have had together. 

"^37 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

It was early in the morning, when we were leaving the 
cafe after the first party, that we encountered the lady 
who caused the second one. I had never met her, but I 
was aware that my companion knew her, for he talked 
about her in his sleep. She was having supper with a 
gentleman at a table near the door, and had you seen her 
it would be unnecessary for me to tell you that my com- 
panion stopped to speak to her, and that I hung around 
until he introduced me. 

After we had stood beside her, for a time, talking and 
gazing down into her beautiful world-wise eyes, the 
gentleman with whom she was supping took pity upon 
us, and upon the waiters, whose passageway we blocked, 
and invited us to sit down. 

It was doubly delightful to meet her there in Wash- 
ington, for besides being beautiful and celebrated, she 
had just come from New York and was able to give us 
news of mutual friends, bringing us up to date on suits 
for separation, alimony, and alienation of affections, on 
divorces and remarriages, and all the little items one 
loses track of when one has been away for a fortnight. 

"I shall be playing in Washington all this week," she 
said as were about to leave. "I hope that we may 
see each other again." 

Whom did she mean by "we"? True, she looked at 
my companion as she spoke, but he was seated at one 
side of her and I at the other, and even with such eyes 
as hers,, she could not have looked at both of us at 

138 



INTO THE OLD DOMINION 

once. Certainly the hope she had expressed was shared 
by me. / hoped that "we" might meet again, and it 
seemed to me desirable at the moment that she should 
understand (and that my companion should be re- 
minded) that he and I were as Damon and Pythias, as 
Castor and Pollux, as Pylades and Orestes, and all that 
sort of thing. Therefore I leaped quickly at the word 
"we," and, before my companion had time to answer, 
replied: 

"I hope so too." 

This brought her eyes to me. She looked surprised, 
I thought, but what of that? Don't women like to be 
surprised? Don't they like men to be strong, resolute, 
determined, like heroes in the moving pictures? Don't 
they like to see a man handle matters with dash ? I was 
determined to be dashing. 

"We are off to Virginia to-morrow morning," I con- 
tinued. "We are going to Fredericksburg and Char- 
lottesville, and into the fox-hunting country. If we 
can get back here Saturday night let 's have a party." 

I spoke of the hunting country debonairely. I did not 
care what she thought my companion was going to the 
hunting country for, but I did not wish her to think that 
I was going only to look on. On the contrary, I desired 
her to suppose that I should presently be wearing a pair 
of beautiful, slim-legged riding boots and a pink coat, 
and leaping a thoroughbred mount over fences and 
gates. I wished her to believe me a wild, reckless, devil 

139 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

of a fellow, and to worry throughout the week lest I be 
killed in a fall from my horse, and she never see me more 
— poor girl! 

That she felt such emotions I have since had reason 
to doubt. However, the idea of a party after the play 
on Saturday night seemed to appeal to her, and it was 
arranged that my companion and I should endeavor to 
get back to Washington after the Piedmont Hunt races, 
which we were to attend on Saturday afternoon, and 
that if we could get back we should telegraph to her. 

We kept our agreement — but I shall come to that 
later. 

Next morning we took train for Fredericksburg. 

The city manager who runs the town is a good house- 
keeper; his streets are wide, pretty, and clean; and 
though there are many historic buildings — including 
the home of Washington's mother and the house in 
which Washington became a Mason — there are enough 
good new ones to give the place a progressive look. 

In the days of the State's magnificence Fredericks- 
burg was the center for all this part of northeastern Vir- 
ginia, and particularly for the Rappahannock Valley; 
and from pre-Revolutionary times, when tobacco was 
legal tender and ministers got roaring drunk, down to 
the Civil War, there came rolling into the town the 
coaches of the great plantation owners of the region, 
who used Fredericksburg as a headquarters for drink- 
ing, gambling, and business. Among these probably the 

140 



INTO THE OLD DOMINION 

most famous was ''King" Carter, who not only owned 
miles upon miles of land and a thousand slaves, but was 
the husband of five (successive) Mrs. Carters. 

Falmouth, a river town a mile above Fredericksburg, 
where a few scattered houses stand to-day, was in early 
times a busy place. It is said that the first flour mill in 
America stood there, and that one Gordon, who made 
his money by shipping flour and tobacco direct from his 
wharf to England, and bringing back bricks as ballast 
for his ships, was the first American millionaire. 

Besides having known intimately such historic figures 
as Washington, Monroe, and Robert E. Lee, and having 
been the scene of sanguinary fighting In the Civil War, 
the neighborhood of Fredericksburg boasts the birth- 
place of a man of whom I wish to speak briefly here, for 
the reason that he was a great man, that he has been 
partially overlooked by history, and that it is said in the 
South that the fame which should justly be his has been 
deliberately withheld by historians and politicians for 
the sole reason that as a naval ofiicer he espoused the 
southern cause in the Civil War. 

Every one who has heard of Robert Fulton, certainly 
every one who has heard of S. F. B. Morse or Cyrus 
W. Field, ought also to have heard of Matthew Fon- 
taine Maury. But that is not the case. For myself, I 
must confess that, until I visited Virginia, I was igno- 
rant of the fact that such a person had existed; nor 
have northern schoolboys, to whom I have spoken of 
Maury, so much as heard his name. Yet there is no 

141 



.,.-^' '- 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

one living in the United States, or in any civilized coun- 
try, whose daily life is not affected through the scientific 
researches and attainments of this man. 

Maury's claim to fame rests on his eminent services 
to navigation and meteorology. If Humboldt's work, 
published in 1817, was the first great contribution to 
meteorological science, it remained for Maury to make 
that science exact. 

While it is perhaps an exaggeration to say that 
Maury alone laid the foundation for our present 
Weather Bureau, he certainly shares with Professors 
Redfield, Espy, Loomis, Joseph Henry, Dr. Increase 
Lapham, and others, the honor of having been one of 
the first to suggest the feasibility of our present sys- 
tematic storm warnings. 

Maury was born in 1806. When nineteen years of 
age he secured a midshipman's warrant, and. as there 
was no naval academy at Annapolis then, was immedi- 
ately assigned to a man-of-war. Within six years he 
was master of an American war vessel. Before start- 
ing on a voyage to the Pacific he sought information on 
the winds and currents, and finding that it was not avail- 
able, determined himself to gather it for general publi- 
cation. This he did, issuing a book upon the subject. 

When a broken leg, the result of a stage-coach acci- 
dent, caused his retirement from active service at sea, 
he continued his studies, and, in recognition of his serv- 
ices to navigation, was given charge of the Depot of 
Charts and Instruments at Washington. There he 

142 



INTO THE OLD DOMINION 

found stored away the log books of American naval 
vessels, and from the vast number of observations they 
contained, began the compilation of the Wind and Cur- 
rents Charts known to all mariners. 

A monograph on Maury, issued by N. W. Ayer & 
Son, of Philadelphia, says of these charts : 

"They were, at first, received with indifference and 
incredulity. Finally, a Captain Jackson determined to 
trust the new chart absolutely. As a result he made 
a round trip to Rio de Janeiro in the time often re- 
quired for the outward passage alone. Later, four 
clipper ships started from New York for San Fran- 
cisco, via Cape Horn. These vessels arrived at their 
destination in the order determined by the degree of 
fidelity with which they had followed the directions of 
Maury's charts. The arrival of these ships in San 
Francisco marked, likewise, the arrival of Maury's 
\\'ind and Currents Charts in the lasting favor of the 
mariners of the world. The average voyage to San 
Francisco was reduced, by use of the charts, from one 
hundred and eighty-three to one hundred and thirty- 
five days, a saving of forty-eight days. 

"Soon after this, the ship San Francisco, with hun- 
dreds of United States troops on board, foundered in 
an Atlantic hurricane. The rumor reached port that 
there was need of help. Maury was called upon to 
indicate her probable location. He set to work to show 
where the wind and currents would combine to place 
a helpless wreck, and marked the place with a blue pen- 

143 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

cil. There the rehef was sent, and there the survivors 
of the wreck were found. From that day to this, 
Maury's word has been accepted without challenge by 
the matter-of-fact men of the sea. 

'These charts, only a few in number, are among the 
most wonderful and useful productions of the human 
mind. One of them combined the result of 1,159,353 
separate observations on the force and direction of the 
wind, and upward of 100,000 observations on the height 
of the barometer, at sea. As the value of such obser- 
vations was recognized, more of them were made. 
Through the genius and devotion of one man. Com- 
mander Maury, every ship became a floating observa- 
tory, keeping careful records of winds, currents, lim- 
its of fogs, icebergs, rain areas, temperature, sound- 
ings, etc., while every maritime nation of the world 
cooperated in a work that was to redound to the benefit 
of commerce and navigation, the increase of knowledge, 
the good of all. 

"In 1853, at the instance of Commander Maury, the 
United States called the celebrated Brussels Conference 
for the cooperation of nations in matters pertaining to 
maritime affairs. At this conference, Maury advo- 
cated the extension of the system of meteorological ob- 
servation to the land, thus forming a weather bureau 
helpful to agriculture. This he urged in papers and 
addresses to the close of his life. Our present Weather 
Bureau and Signal Service are largely the outcome of 
his perception and advocacy." 

144 



INTO THE OLD DOMINION 

Maury's "Physical Geography of the Sea," the work 
by which he is best known, was pubHshed in 1855. He 
discovered, among other things, the causes of the Gulf 
Stream, and the existence of the still-water plateau of 
the North Atlantic which made possible the laying of 
the first cable. Cyrus W. Field said, with reference to 
Maury's work in this connection: *'Maury furnished 
the brains, England gave the money, and I did the work." 

Maury was decorated by many foreign governments 
but not by his own. Owing, it is said, to his having 
taken up the Confederate clause, national honors were 
withheld from him, not only during the remainder of his 
life, but until 191 6, when one of the large buildings at 
the Naval Academy — the establishment of which, by the 
way, Maury was one o\\ the first to advocate — was 
named for him, and Con? iess passed a bill appropriat- 
ing funds for the erectio?'{ of a monument to the "Path- 
finder of the Sea," in W.v^shington. 

Maury died in 1873, yne of the most loved and hon- 
ored men in the State of Virginia. 

It is recorded that, near the end, he asked his son: 
"Am I dragging my anchors?" 

And when the latter replied in the affirmative, the 
father gave a brave sailor's answer : 

"All 's well," he said. 

Across the river from Fredericksburg stands C hat- 
ham, the old Fitzhugh house, one of the most charming of 
early Virginian mansions. Chatham was built in 1728, 

145 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

and it is thought that the plans for it were drawn by 
Sir Christopher Wren at the order of WiUiam Pitt, 
Earl of Chatham, and sent by the latter to William 
Fitzhugh, who had been his classmate at Eton and Ox- 
ford. Not only does the name of the house lend color 
to the tale, but so do its proportions, which are very 
beautiful, reminding one somewhat of those of Dough- 
oregan Manor. Chatham, however, has the advantage 
of being (as the Elon. Charles Augustus Murray wrote 
of it in his quaint "Travels in North America," pub- 
lished in 1839) "situated cm an eminence commanding 
a view of the town, and of the bold, sweeping course 
of the Rappahannoc." Mur^ray also tells of the beau- 
tiful garden, with its great box trees and its huge slave- 
built terraces, stepping down to the water like a giant's 
stairway. 11 

In this house my companioa and I were guests, and 
as I won the toss for the choice of rooms, mine was the 
privilege of sleeping in the hrjtoric west bedchamber, 
the principal guest room, and of opening my eyes, in the 
morning, upon a lovely wall all paneled in white-painted 
wood. 

I shall always remember the delightful experience 
of awakening in that room, so vast, dignified, and beauti- 
ful, and of lying there a little drowsy, and thinking of 
those who had been there before me. This was the 
room occupied by George and Martha Washington when 
they stopped for a few days at Chatham on their wed- 
ding journey; this was the room occupied by Madison, 

146 



INTO THE OLD DOMINION 

by Monroe, by Washington Irving, and by Robert E. 
Lee when he visited Chatham and courted Mary Custis, 
who became his wafe. And, most wonderful of all to 
me, this was the room occupied by Lincoln when he came 
to Fredericksburg to review the army, while Chatham 
was Union headquarters, and the embattled Lee had 
headquarters in the old house known as Brompton, still 
standing on Marye's Lleights back of the river and the 
town. It is said that Lee during the siege of Fred- 
ericksburg never trained his guns on Chatham, because 
of his sentiment for the place. As I lay there in the 
morning I wondered if Lee had been aware, at the time, 
that Lincoln was under the roof of Chatham, and 
whether Lincoln knew, when he slept in "my" room, 
that Washington and Lee had both been there before 
him. 

War, I thought, not only makes strange bedfellows, 
but strange combinations in the histories of bedrooms. 

Then the maid rajr'^ed for the second time upon my 
door, and though this time I got up at once, my rumina- 
tions made me scandalously late for breakfast. 

After breakfast came the motor, which was to take us 
to the battlefields, its driver a thin dry-looking, dry- 
talking- man, with the air of one a little tired of the 
story he told to tourists day in and day out, yet con- 
scientiously resolved to go through with it. Before the 
huge cemetery which overlooks the site of the most vio- 
lent fighting that occurred in the bloody and useless 
Battle of Fredericksburg, he paused briefly; then drove 

147 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

us to the field of Chancellorsville, to that of the Battles 
of the Wilderness, and finally to the region of Spottsyl- 
vania Courthouse ; and at each important spot he stopped 
and told us what had happened there. He knew all 
about the Civil War, that man, and he had a way of 
passing- out his information with a calm assumption that 
his hearers knew nothing about it whatever. This 
irritated my companion, who also knows all about the 
War, having once passed three days in the neighbor- 
hood of a Soldiers' Home. Consequently he kept cut- 
ting in, supplying additional details — such, for instance, 
as that Stonewall Jackson, who died in a house which 
the driver pointed out, was shot by some of his own men, 
who took him for a Yankee as he was returning from a 
reconnaissance. 

Either one of these competitive historians alone, I 
could have stood, but the way they picked each other 
up, fighting the old-time battles over again, got on my 
nerves. Besides, it was cold, and as I have taken oc- 
casion to remark before, I do not like cold motor rides. 
Indeed, as I think it over, it seems to me I do not like 
battlefields, either. At all events, I became more and 
more morose as we traversed that bleak Virginia land- 
scape, and I am afraid that before the day was over I 
was downright sulky. 

As we drove back to Fredericksburg and to the train 
which was to take us to Charlottesville, my companion 
made remarks of a general character about people who 
were trivial minded, and who did n't take a proper in- 

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INTO THE OLD DOMINION 

terest in the scenes of great historical occurrences. 
When he had continued for some time in this vein, I 
remarked feebly that I loved to read about battles; but 
that, far from mitig-ating his severity, only caused him 
to change his theme. He said that physical laziness 
was a terrible thing because it not only made the body 
soft but by degrees softened the brain, as well. He 
said that when people didn't want to see battlefields, 
preferring to lie in bed and read about them, that was 
a sign of the beginning of the end. 

On various occasions throughout the week he brought 
this subject up again, and I was glad indeed when, as 
the time for our party with the beautiful young actress, 
in \\^ashington, drew near, he began to forget about 
my shortcomings and think of more agreeable things. 



149 



CHAPTER XIV 
CHARLOTTESVILLE AND MONTICELLO 

WHEN Virginians speak of ''the university," 
they do not mean Harvard, Princeton, Yale, 
or even Washington and Lee, but always the 
University of Virginia, which is at Charlottesville. 

The city of Charlottesville, in its downtown parts, is 
no more and no less dingy and dismal than many an- 
other town of six or seven thousand inhabitants, be it 
North or South. It has a long main street, lined with 
little shops and moving-picture shows, and the theatrical 
posters which thrill one at first sight with hopes of even- 
ing entertainment, prove, on inspection, to have sur- 
vived long after the "show" they advertise has come and 
gone, or else to presage the ''show" that is coming for 
one night, week after next. 

Nor is this scarcity of theatrical entertainment con- 
fined alone to small towns of the South. Not all impor- 
tant stars and important theatrical productions visit 
even the largest cities, for the South is not regarded 
by theatrical managers as particularly profitable terri- 
tory. It would be interesting to know whether anaemia 
of the theater in the South, as well as the falling ofif 
generally of theatergoing in lesser x\merican cities — 

150 



CHARLOTTESVILLE AND MONTICELLO 

usually attributed to the popularity and cheapness of the 
*'movies" — is not due in large measure to the folly of 
managers themselves in sending out inferior com- 
panies. Any one who has seen a theatrical entertain- 
ment in New York and seen it later "on the road" is 
likely to be struck by the fact that even the larger Ameri- 
can cities do not always get the full New York cast, 
while smaller cities seldom if ever get any part of it. 
The South sufifers particularly in this respect. The 
little "river shows," which arrive now and then in river 
towns, and which are more or less characteristic of the 
South, have the excuse of real picturesqueness, however 
bad the entertainment given, for the players live and 
have their theater on flatboats, which tie up at the 
wharf. But the plain fact about the ordinary little 
southern "road show" is that it does not deserve to 
make money. 

The life of a poor player touring the South must be 
very wretched, for generally, excepting in large cities, 
hotels are poor. Before we had gone far upon our way, 
my companion and I learned to inquire carefully in 
advance as to the best hotels, and when we found in 
any small city one which was not a fire trap, and which 
was clean, we \yere surprised, while if the service was 
fairly good, and the meals were not very bad, we con- 
sidered it a matter for rejoicing. 

We were advised to stop, in Charlottesville, at the 
New Gleason, and when we alighted at the dingy old 
brick railroad station — a station quite as unprepossess- 

151 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

ing as that at New Haven, Connecticut — we began to 
feel that all was not for the best. A large gray horse 
hitched to the hack in which we rode to the Gleason evi- 
dently felt the same, for at first he balked, and later tried 
to run away. 

The hotel lobby was a perfect example of its kind. 
There were several drummers writing at the little desks, 
and several more sitting idly in chairs adjacent to brass 
cuspidors. All of them looked despondent with a de- 
spondency suggesting pie for breakfast. Behind the 
desk was a sleepy-looking old clerk who, as we arrived, 
was very busy over a financial transaction involving 
change of ownership in a two-cent stamp. This enter- 
prise concluded, he assigned us rooms. 

Never have I wished to win the toss for rooms as I 
wished it when I saw the two allotted to us, for though 
the larger one could not by a flight of fancy be termed 
cheerful, the sight of the lesser chamber filled me with 
thoughts of madness. 

Of course I lost. 

Never shall I forget that room. It was too small to 
accommodate my trunks with any comfort, so I left them 
downstairs with the porter, descending, now and then, 
to get such articles as I required. The furniture, what 
there was of it, was of yellow pine; the top of the 
dresser was scarred with the marks of many glasses and 
many bottles ; the lace window curtains were long, hard 
and of a wiry stififness, and the wall-paper was of a 
scrambled pattern all in bilious brown. During the eve- 

152 



CHARLOTTESVILLE AND MONTICELLO 

ning I persuaded my companion to walk with me through 
the town, and once I got him out I kept him going on and 
on through shadowy streets unknown to us, until, ex- 
hausted, he insisted upon returning to our hostelry. I 
fancy that there are picturesque old houses on the out- 
skirts of the town, but with that wall paper and a terrible 
nostalgia occupying my mind, I was in no state to judge 
of what was there. 

On reaching the hotel my companion went to bed, but 
I remained until late in the office, writing letters, do- 
ing anything rather than go up to my room. When 
at last I did ascend I planned to read, but the arrange- 
ment of the light was bad, so presently I put it out and 
lay there sleepless and miserable, thinking of foolish 
things that I have said and done during a life rich with 
such items, and having chills and fever over each sepa- 
rate recollection. How I drifted off to sleep at last I 
do not know ; all I remember is waking up next morning, 
leaping out of bed and dressing In frantic haste to get 
out of my room. There was but one thing in it which 
did not utterly offend the eye: that w^as the steam pipe 
which ascended from floor to ceiling at one corner, and 
which, being a simple, honest metal tube, was not ob- 
jectionable. 

As we passed through the office on our way to break- 
fast, the bus man entered, and in a loud, retarded chant 
proclaimed : "Train for the South !" 

The impressive tones in which this announcement was 
delivered seemed to call for a sudden stir, a rush for bags 

153 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

and coats, a general exodus, but no one in the office 
moved, and I remember feeling sorry for the bus man as 
he turned and went out in the midst of a crushing anti- 
climax. 

'T wonder," I said to my companion, "if anybody ever 
gets up and goes when that man calls out the trains." 

"I don't believe so," he replied. "I don't think he 
calls trains for any such purpose. He only warns peo- 
ple so they will expect to hear the train, and not be fright- 
ened when it goes through." 

Thomas Jefferson is most widely remembered, I sup- 
pose, as the author of the Declaration of Independence, 
the third President, the purchaser of Louisiana, and the 
unfortunate individual upon whom the Democratic party 
casts the blame for its existence, precisely as the Repub- 
lican party blames itself on Washington and Lincoln — 
although the lamentable state into which both parties 
have fallen is actually the fault of living men. 

It is significant, however, that of this trio of Jeffer- 
sonian items, Jefferson himself selected but one to be 
included in the inscription which he wrote for his tomb- 
stone — a modest obelisk on the grounds at Monticello. 
The inscription mentions but three of his achievements : 
the authorship of the Declaration, that of the Virginia 
statute for religious freedom, and the fact that he was 
"Father of the University of Virginia." 

Regardless of other accomplishments, the man who 
built the university and the house at Monticello was 

154 



CHARLOTTESVILLE AND MONTICELLO 

great. It is more true of these buildings than of any 
others I have seen that they are the autobiography, in 
brick and stone, of their architect. To see them, to see 
some of the exquisitely margined manuscript in Jeffer- 
son's clean handwriting, preserved in the university li- 
brary, and to read the Declaration, is to gain a grasp of 
certain sides of Jefferson's nature which can be achieved 
in no other way. 

Monticello stands on a lofty hilltop, with vistas, be- 
tween trees, of neighboring valleys, hills, and moun- 
tains. It is a supremely lovely house, unlike any other, 
and, while it is too much to say that one would recognize 
it as the house of the writer of the Declaration, it is not 
too much to say that, once one does know it, one can trace 
a clear affinity resulting from a common origin — an 
affinity much more apparent, by the way, than may be 
traced between the work of Michelangelo on St. Peter's 
at Rome, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and in his 
"David." 

The introductory paragraph to the Declaration 
ascends into the body of the document as gracefully and 
as certainly as the wide flights of easy steps ascend to 
the doors of Monticello; the long and beautifully bal- 
anced paragraph which follows, building word upon 
word and sentence upon sentence into a central state- 
ment, has a form as definite and graceful as that of the 
finely proportioned house; the numbered paragraphs 
which follow, setting forth separate details, are like 
rooms within the house, and — I have just come upon the 

155 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

coincidence with a pleasant start such as might be felt by 
the discoverer of some complex and important cipher — 
as there are twenty-seven of the numbered paragraphs 
in the Declaration, so there are twenty-seven rooms in 
Monticello. Last of all there are two little phrases in 
the Declaration (the phrases stating that we shall hold 
our British brethren in future as we hold the rest of 
mankind — "enemies in war; in peace, friends"), which 
I would liken to the small twin buildings, one of them 
Jefferson's office, the other that of the overseer, which 
stand on either side of the lawn at Monticello, at some 
distance from the house. These office buildings face, 
and balance upon each other, and upon the mansion, but 
they are so much smaller that to put them there required 
daring, while to make them "compose" (as painters say) 
with the great house, required the almost superhuman 
sense of symmetry which Jefferson assuredly possessed. 

The present owner of Monticello is Mr. Jefferson 
Monroe Levy, former United States congressman from 
New York. Mr. Levy Is a Democrat and a bachelor, ac- 
cording to the Congressional Directory, which states 
further that he inherited Monticello from an uncle, Com- 
modore Uriah P. Levy, U. S. N., and that the latter pur- 
chased the place in 1830 "at the suggestion of President 
Jackson." 

Dorothy Dix, writing in "Good Housekeeping," tells 
a tale which I have heard repeatedly of the acquisition 
of Monticello by Uriah Levy. Says Miss Dix: 

"Monticello was sold to a stranger, and Jefferson's 

156 







Monticello stands on a lufty hilltop, with vistas, between trees of neighboring 
valleys, hills, and mountains 



CHARLOTTESVILLE AND MONTICELLO 

only daughter, Mrs. Randolph, widowed and with eleven 
children, was left homeless. ... A subscription of three 
thousand dollars was raised ... to buy back the house 
. . . and this money was intrusted to a young relative of 
the Jeliersons' to convey to Charlottesville. Traveling 
in the stagecoach with the young man was Captain 
Uriah P. Levy, to whom he confided his mission. The 
young man became intoxicated and dallied, but Captain 
Levy hastened on to Charlottesville, and purchased 
Monticello for two thousand five hundred dollars. The 
next day the repentant and sober young man arrived and 
besought Captain Levy to take the three thousand dol- 
lars . . . and let Monticello go back to the Jefferson 
family. Captain Levy refused to part with his bargain, 
but at his death he willed Monticello to 'the people of 
the United States to be held as a memorial of Thomas 
Jefferson' . . . The Levy heirs contested the will, and it 
was finally decided upon a technicality that 'the people of 
the United States' was too indefinite a term to make the 
bequest binding, and the estate passed into the hands of 
the Levys, and so to its present owner. . . ." 

In a biographical note upon the latter, the Congres- 
sional Directory states that the house is "kept open to 
the public all the year." My companion and I w^ere ad- 
mitted to the grounds, but were informed that, though 
the building was unoccupied, no one was permitted to 
enter. While we were in the vicinity of the house we 
were attended by one of the men employed on the place, 
who told us that when people were allowed to roam 

^57 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

about at will, there had been much vandalism; ivy had 
been pulled from the walls, shrubbery broken, pieces of 
brick chipped out of the steps, and teeth knocked from 
the heads of the marble lions which flank them. 

Of recent years there has been on foot a movement, 
launched, I believe, by Mrs, Martin W. Littleton, of New 
York, to influence the Government to purchase Monti- 
cello from its present owner. It is difficult to see pre- 
cisely how Mr. Levy could be forced to part with his 
property, if he did not wish to. Nevertheless public 
sentiment on this subject has become so strong that he 
has agreed to let the Government have Monticello "at a 
price" — so, at least, I was informed in Charlottesville. 



158 



CHAPTER XV 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 

The opening of the University of Virginia was an event of prime im- 
portance for the higher education in the whole country, and really marks 
a new era. 

— Charles Forster Smith. 

LIKE Monticello, the buildings of the University 
of Virginia are those of an intellectual, a classi- 
cist, a purist, and, like it, they might have been 
austere but for the warmth of their red brick and the 
glow of their white-columned porticos. But they are 
cheerful buildings, which, individually and as a group, 
attain a geometrical yet soft perfection, a supreme har- 
mony of form and color. 

The principal buildings are grouped about a large 
campus, called the Lawn, which is dominated by the ro- 
tunda, suggesting in its outlines the Pantheon at Rome. 
From the rotunda, at either side, starts a white-columned 
arcade connecting the various houses which are dis- 
tributed at graceful intervals along the margins of the 
rectangular lawn, above which loom the tops of even 
rows of beautiful old trees. Flanking the buildings of 
the lawn, and reached by brick walks which pass be- 
tween the famous serpentine walls (walls but one brick 
thick which support themselves on the snake-fence prin- 
ciple, by progressing in a series of reverse curves), are 
the "ranges": solid rows of one-story student dormito- 

159 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

ries built of brick and fronted by colonnades which com- 
mand other lawns and other trees. 

With a single exception, restorations and additions to 
the university have been made with reverence and taste, 
and the Brooks Museum, the one architectural horror of 
the place, fortunately does not stand upon the lawn. 
Since it is said that beauty could not exist were there not 
ugliness for contrast, this building may have its uses; 
certainly, after a glance at it, one looks back with re- 
newed delight at the structures of the central group. 

Most superb of all, always there hangs at night, above 
the buildings and the tree-tops, a glorious full moon. 
At least I suppose it always hangs there, for though it 
seemed to us very wonderful, every one else seemed used 
to it. 

Like Venice, the University of Virginia should first 
be seen by moonlight. There could not have been a 
finer moonlit night, I thought, than that cold, crisp one 
upon which my companion stood for two hours beside 
the rotunda, gazing at the lawn and drawing it, its frosty 
grass and trees decked with diamonds, its white columns 
standing out softly from their shadow backgrounds like 
phosporescent ghosts in the luminous blue darkness. 
Until I was nearly frozen I stayed there with him. 
That drawing cost him one of the worst colds he ever 
had. 

The university ought to have, and has, many tra- 
ditions, and life there ought to be, and is, dififerent from 
life in any other college. Jefferson brought from Italy 

1 60 



THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 

the men who carved the capitals of the columns (the de- 
scendants of some of these Itahan workmen Hve in 
Charlottesville to-day), and when the columns were in 
place he brought from Europe the professors to form 
the faculty, creating what was practically a small Eng- 
lish university in the United States. Never until, a 
dozen years ago, Dr. E. A. Alderman became president, 
had there been such an office; before that time the uni- 
versity had a rector, and the duties of president were 
performed by a chairman of the faculty, elected by the 
faculty from among its members. This was the first 
university to adopt the elective system, permitting the 
students, as Jefferson wrote, "uncontrolled choice in the 
lectures they shall attend," instead of prescribing one- 
course of reading for all. No less important, the 
University of Virginia was the first college to introduce 
(1842) the honor system, and still has the most com- 
plete honor system to be found among American col- 
leges. This system is an outgrowth of the Jeft'er- 
sonian idea of student self-government; under it each 
student signs, with examination papers, a pledge that 
he has neither given nor received assistance. That is 
found sufficient; students are not watched, nor need 
they be. With time this system has been extended, 
so that it now covers not only examinations, but many 
departments of college life, eliminating professionalism 
in athletics and plagiarism in literary work, and result- 
ing in a delightful mutual confidence between the student 
body and the faculty. 

161 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Madison and Monroe were active members of the 
university's first board of visitors ; the first college Y. M. 
C. A. was started there; and among many famous men 
who have attended the university may be mentioned Ed- 
gar Allan Poe, Thomas Nelson Page, and Thomas 
Woodrow Wilson, whose name appears thus upon the 
"University Magazine" for 1879-80, as one of its three 
editors. The ill-starred Poe attended the university for 
only one year, at the end of which time his adopted 
father, Mr. Allan, of Richmond, withdrew him because 
of debts he had contracted while acquiring his education 
in gambling and drinking champagne. Poe's former 
room, No. 13 West Range, is now the office of the 
magazine. 

The clean, lovely manuscript in Jefferson's handwrit- 
ing, of the first Anglo-Saxon grammar written in the 
United States, is to be seen in the university library; 
Jefferson was Vice-President of the United States when 
he wrote it; he put Anglo-Saxon in the first curriculum 
of the university, and it has been taught there ever since. 
In a note which is a part of the manuscript, he advocates 
the study of Anglo-Saxon as an introduction to modern 
English on the ground that though about half the words 
in our present language are derived from Latin and 
Greek, these being the scholarly words, the other half, 
the words we use most often, are Anglo-Saxon. 

Before the war it was not uncommon for students at 
the university to have their negro body servants with 
them, and it has occasionally happened since that some 

162 



THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 

young sprig of southern aristocracy has come to college 
thus attended. 

Perhaps the most striking and characteristic feature 
of student life to-day, from the point of view of the 
stray visitor, is the formal attitude of students to- 
ward one another. There is no easy-going casualness 
between them, no calling back and forth, no "hello," by 
way of greeting. They pass each other on the walks 
either without speaking (men have been punished at 
the university by being ignored by the entire student 
body), or if they do greet each other the customary 
saluation is "How are you, sir?" or "How are you, 
gentlemen ?" First-year men are expected to wear hats, 
and not to speak to upper classmen until they have been 
spoken to; and, though there is no hazing at the uni- 
versity, woe betide them if they do not heed these rules. 

In the early days of the university there was an effort 
to exercise restraint over students, to make them account 
for their goings and comings, and to prevent their going 
to taverns or betting upon horse races. Also they were 
obliged to wear a uniform. The severity was so great 
that they appealed to Jefferson, who sided with them. 
He, however, died in the same year, and friction pre- 
vailed for perhaps a decade longer, with many student 
disorders, culminating in the shooting of a professor by 
a student. In 1840 the students were at last granted full 
freedom, and two years later the honor system was 
adopted. 

During the university's first years young men from 

163 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

the far South, where duehng was especially prevalent, 
did not come in large numbers to the University of Vir- 
ginia, but went, as a rule, to the northern colleges, 
but about the middle of the century, as feeling be- 
tween North and South over taxation. States' Rights 
and slavery became more acute, these men began to flock 
to the college at Charlottesville. Between 1850 and 
i860 the university almost doubled in size, and at about 
the same time there developed a good deal of dueling be- 
tween students. 

When the War ended many men who had gone into 
the Confederate army at sixteen or seventeen years of 
age came to Charlottesville to complete their education. 
The hard life of the army had made some of these into a 
wild lot, and there was a great deal of gambling and 
drinking during their time, and also after it, for several 
succeeding generations of students looked up to the ex- 
soldiers as heroes, and carried on the unfortunate tradi- 
tions left by them at the university. In the nineties, 
however, a change came, and though there is still some 
drinking and gambling, it is doubtful whether such vices 
are now more prevalent at the University of Virginia 
than at many other colleges. The honor system has 
never been extended to cover these points. 

It is related that, in Poe's time, gambling became such 
a serious obstacle to discipline and work that the uni- 
versity authorities set the town marshal after a score or 
so of gambling students, Poe among them, whereupon 
these students fled to the Ragged Mountains, near by, 

164 



THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 

and remained for two weeks, during which time Poe is 
said to have mightily entertained them with stories and 
prophecies, including a forecast of the Civil War, in 
which, he declared, two of the youths present would fight 
on opposite sides. 

The Poe tradition is kept vigorously alive at the tmi- 
versity. Not long ago a member of the Raven Society, 
one of the rather too numerous student organizations, 
discovered the burial place of Poe's mother, who was 
an actress, and who died penniless in Richmond at the 
age of twenty-four and was buried with the destitute. 
By a happy inspiration a fund was raised among the 
students for the erection of a monument to her — an ex- 
ample of fine and chivalrous sentiment on the part of 
these young men, which, one feels, is somehow delicately 
intertwined with the traditions of the honor system. 

The Poe professor of English at the university, when 
we were there, was Dr. C. Alphonso Smith, who has 
since taken the professorship of English at the United 
States Naval Academy. By a coincidence which has 
proved a happy one for those who love the stories of the 
late Sidney Porter (O. Henry), Dr. Smith grew up 
as a boy with Porter, in Greensboro, North Carolina. 
Because of this, and also because of Dr. Smith's own 
gifts as a writer and an analyst, it is peculiarly fitting 
that he should have undertaken the work which has oc- 
cupied him for several years past, the result of which 
has recently been given to us in the form "The O. Henry 
Biography." 

165 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Dr. Smith was Roosevelt exchange professor at the 
University of Berlin in 1910-11, holding the chair of 
American History and Institutions. While occupying 
that professorship he met the Kaiser. 

'T talked with him twice," he said, "and upon the 
second occasion under very delightful circumstances, 
for I was invited to dinner at the Palace at Potsdam, and 
was the only guest, the Kaiser, Kaiserin, and Princess 
Victoria Luise being present. 

*'The Kaiser is, of course, a very magnetic man. 
His eyes are his most remarkable feature. They are 
very large, brilliant, and sparkling, and he rolls them 
in a manner most unusual. While he is always the 
king and the soldier, he can be genial and charming. 
One might expect a man in his position to be blase, but 
that, most of all, is what he is not. He is like a boy 
in his vitality and vividness, and he has a great and per- 
sistent intellectual curiosity. It is this, I think, which 
used to cause him to be compared with Colonel Roose- 
velt. Both would like to know all things, and both have 
had, and have exercised more, perhaps, than any other 
two living men, the power to bring to themselves the 
central figures in all manner of world events, and thus 
learn at first hand, from acknowledged authorities, about 
the subjects that interest them — which is to say, every- 
thing, 

"He frankly admired America. I don't mean that 
he said so for the sake of courtesy to me, but that he 
has — or did have, then — an immense and rather roman- 

166 



THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 

tic interest in this country. A great many Germans 
used to resent this trait in him. America held in his 
mind the same romantic position that the idea of 
monarchy did in the minds of some of us. I mean that 
the average American went for romance to stories of 
monarchy, but that the Kaiser, being used to the mon- 
archial idea, found his romance over here. (I am, of 
course, speaking of him as he was five or six years ago.) 
He wished to come to America, but was never able to do 
so, since German law forbids it. And, perhaps because 
he could not come, America was the more a sort of 
dream to him. 

"He asked me about some of the things in Berlin 
which I had noticed as being different from things at 
home, and when I mentioned the way that history was 
kept alive in the very streets of Berlin, his eyes danced, 
and he said that was one of the things he had tried 
to accomplish by the erection of the numerous monu- 
ments which have been placed in Berlin during his reign. 
He told me of other means by which history was kept 
alive in Germany: among them that every officer has 
to know in detail the history of his regiment, and that 
German regiments always celebrate the anniversaries of 
their great days. 

"He speaks English without an accent, though we 
might say that he spoke it with an English accent. He 
told me that he had learned English before he learned 
German, and had also caused his children to learn it 
first. He reads Mark Twain, or had read him, and he 

167 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

enjoyed him, but he said that when he met Mark Twain 
the latter had Httle or nothing to say, and that it was 
only with the greatest difficulty that he got him to talk 
at all. He subscribed, he told me, to 'Harper's Maga- 
zine,' and he was in the habit of reading short stories 
aloud to his family, in English. He admired the Amer- 
ican short story, and I remember that he declared: 
'The Americans know how to plunge into a short story. 
We Germans are too long-winded.' " 

When Professor Smith talks about the Kaiser, you 
say to yourself: "I know that it is growing late, but 
I cannot bear to leave until I have heard the rest of 
this"; when he drifts presently to O. Henry, you say 
the same; and so it is always, no matter w^hat his sub- 
ject. At last, however, the grandfather's clock in the 
hall below his study sends up a stern message which is 
not to be mistaken, whereupon you arise reluctantly 
from your comfortable chair, spill the cigar ashes out of 
your lap onto the rug, dust off your clothing, and take 
your leave. Nor is your regret at departing lessened 
by the fact that you must go to your bilious-colored 
bedroom in the New Gleason, and that you will not see 
the university, or Professor C. Alphonso Smith, or Mrs. 
Smith again, because you are leaving upon the morrow. 

So it must always be with the itinerant illustrator and 
writer. They are forever finding new and lovely scenes 
only to leave them; forever making new and charming 
friends only to part with them, faring forth again into 
the unknown. 

1 68 



o 
< 




CHAPTER XVI 
FOX-HUNTING IN VIRGINIA 

Better to hunt in fields for health unbought 
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. 
The wise for cure on exercise depend; 
God never made his work for man to mend. 

— Dryden. 

IT Is my impression that the dining-car conductor on 
the Chesapeake & Ohio train by which we left 
Charlottesville was puzzled when I asked his name ; 
but if he sees this and remembers the incident he will 
not know that I did so because I wished here to men- 
tion him as a humane citizen. His name is C. G. 
Mitchell, and he was so accommodating as to serve a 
light meal, after hours, when he did not have to, to two 
hungry men who needed it. If travel has taught my 
companion and me anything, it has taught us that not 
all dining-car conductors are like that. Nor, I judge, 
can all dining-car conductors play the violin, pleasantly, 
in ofif hours, as does Mr. Mitchell. Better one merciful 
dining-car conductor than twenty who wear white car- 
nations at their left lapels, but wear no hearts below 
them ! 

The road by which we drove from the railroad 
into the fastnesses of Loudon County, where, near the 
little settlement of Upperville, the race meet of the 

169 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Piedmont Hunt was to be held, suggested other times 
and other manners, for though we rode in a motor car, 
and though we passed another now and then, machines 
were far outnumbered by the horses which, under sad- 
dle, or hitched to buggies, surreys, and carts of all de- 
scriptions, were heading toward the meeting place. 

On these roads, one felt, the motor was an outsider; 
this was the kingdom of the horse that we were visit- 
ing; soft dirt roads were there for him to trot and 
gallop on, and fences of wood or stone, free from barbed 
wire, were everywhere, for him to jump. 

Throughout the week we had looked forward to this 
day, and even more, perhaps, to the party which, if we 
could get back to Washington that night, was to follow 
it; wherefore the first thing we did on reaching a place 
where information was obtainable was to inquire about 
facilities for leaving. Herein my companion had the 
advantage of me, for there was nothing to prevent his 
departing immediately after the races, whereas I must 
remain behind for an hour or two, to learn something of 
fox-hunting as practised in this region. 

By motoring immediately after the races to a neigh- 
boring town — Bluemont if I remember rightly^and 
there taking an interurban trolley to some other place, 
and changing cars, and going without his dinner, my 
companion found that he could get to Washington by 
nine o'clock. My case was different. Should I be de- 
layed more than two hours I could not get away at all 
that night, but must miss the much anticipated party 

170 



FOX-HUNTING IN VIRGINIA 

altogether; and, though my companion seemed to view 
this possibiHty with perfect equanimity, my memories 
of the charming lady whom we were to meet at the 
stage door, after the performance, were too clear to 
permit of indifference in me. The trolley my compan- 
ion meant to catch was, however, the last one; my 
only hope, therefore, was to motor a distance of per- 
haps a dozen miles, over roads which I was frankly 
told were "middling to bad," and try to catch a train 
at The Plains station. If I missed this train, I was lost, 
and must spend a solitary night in such a room as I 
might be able to find in a strange village. That possi- 
bility did not appeal to me. I began to wish that there 
was no such thing as fox-hunting, or that, there being 
such a thing, I had chosen to ignore it. 

''Now," said my companion cheerfully, "we '11 tele- 
graph her." 

At a telegraph office he seized the pencil and wrote 
the following message: 

Will call for you to-night after performance. 

To this he signed his own name. 

"What about me?" I suggested, after glancing over 
his shoulder at the message. 

"Oh, well," said he, "there 's no use in going into all 
that in a telegram. It 's sufficient to let her know that 
one of us is coming." 

"But I proposed this party." 

171 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

"Well/' he gave in, with an air of pained patience, 
"what shall I say, then? Shall I add that you are un- 
avoidably detained?" 

"Not by a jugful!" I returned. "Add that I hope to 
get there too, and will make every effort to do so." 

He wrote it out, sighing as he did so. Then, by care- 
ful cutting, he got it down to fourteen words. By that 
time the operator could n't read it, so he wrote it out 
again — gloomily. 

This accomplished, we matched coins to see who 
should pay for the message. He lost. 

"All right !" he said. "I '11 pay for it, but it 's all fool- 
ishness to send such a long telegram. 

"No," I returned, as we left the office and got into the 
machine, "it is not foolishness. If I can make life a 
little brighter for a beautiful woman, by adding a few 
words to a telegram, and sticking you for it, I shall do it 
every time." 

He looked away over the fields and did not answer 
me. So we drove on in silence to where stands the beau- 
tiful manor house called Huntland, which is the resi- 
dence of Mr. Joseph B. Thomas, M. F. H. of the Pied- 
mont Hunt. 

There is, I have been told, no important hunt in the 
United States in which the master of foxhounds is not 
the chief financial supporter, the sport being a very 
costly one. Of American hunts, the Middlesex, in Mas- 
sachusetts, of which Mr. A. Henry Higginson is M. 
F. H., has the reputation of being the best appointed. 

172 



FOX-HUNTING IN VIRGINIA 

The Piedmont Hunt is, however, one of the half dozen 
leading organizations of the kind, and it is difficult in- 
deed to imagine a finer. 

In a well-kept park near Mr. Thomas's house stand 
extensive English-looking buildings of brick and 
stucco, which, viewed from a distance, suggest a beau- 
tiful country house, and which, visited, teach one that 
certain favored hounds and horses in this world live 
much better than certain human beings. One building 
is given over to the kennels, the other the stables ; each 
has a large sunlit court, and each is as beautiful and 
as clean as a fine house — a house full of trophies, hunt- 
ing equipment, and the pleasant smell of well-cared-for 
saddlery. In a rolling meadow, not far distant, is the 
race course, all green turf, and here, soon after luncheon, 
gathered an extraordinary diversified crowed. 

For the most part the crowd was a fashionable one: 
men and women of the type whose photographs appear 
in "Vogue" and "Vanity Fair," and whose costumes 
were like fashion suggestions for "sport clothes" in 
those publications. One party was stationed on the 
top of an old-time mail coach, the boot of which bore 
the significant initials "F, F. V." — standing, as even 
benighted Northerners must be aware, for "First Fam- 
ilies of Virginia" ; others were in a line of motors 
and heterogeneous horse-drawn vehicles, parked beside 
the course; and scattered through the gathering, like 
brushmarks on an impressionist canvas, one saw the 
brilliant color of pink coats. Handsome hunters were 

^7Z 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

being ridden or led about by negro grooms, and others 
kept arriving, ridden in by farmers and breeders, while 
here and there one saw a woman rider, her hair tightly 
drawn back under a mannish derby hat, her figure 
slender and graceful in a severely-cut habit coat. 
Jumbled together in a great green meadow under a 
sweet autumnal sun, these things made a picture of 
what, I am persuaded, is the ultimate in extravagant 
American country life. There was something, too, 
about this blending of fashionables and farmers, which 
made me think of the theater; for there is, in truth, a 
distinct note of histrionism about many of the rich 
Americans who "go in for" elaborate ruralness, and there 
is a touch of it very often, also, about "horsey" people. 
They like to "look the part," and they dress it with no 
less care than they exercise, at other seasons, in dress- 
ing the parts of opera-going cosmopolites, or wealthy 
loungers at the beaches. In other words, these fash- 
ionables had the overtrained New York look all over 
them, and the local rustics set them off as effectively 
as the villainous young squire of the Drury Lane 
melodrama is set off by contrast with honest old Jas- 
per, the miller, who wears a smock, and comes to the 
Great House to beg the Young Master to "make an 
honest woman" of poor Rose, the fairest lass in all 
Hampshire. 

About the races themselves there was something fasci- 
natingly nonprofessional. They bore the same relation 
to great races on great tracks that a very fine perform- 

174 



FOX-HUNTING IN VIRGINIA 

ance of a play by amateurs might bear to a professional 
performance. 

First came a two-mile steeplechase, with brush 
hurdles. Then, after a couple of minor events, a four- 
mile point-to-point race for hunters ridden by gentle- 
men in hunt uniform. This was as stiff a race for 
both horses and riders as I have ever seen, and it was 
very picturesque to watch the pink coats careering up 
hill and down dale, now over a tall stone wall, now over 
a brook or a snake fence; and when a rider went head 
over heels, and lay still upon the ground where he fell, 
while his horse cantered along after the field, in that 
aimless and pathetic way that riderless horses have, one 
had a real sensation — which was the pleasanter for 
knowing, a few minutes later, that the horseman had 
only broken an arm. 

Next was run a rollicking race for horses owned by 
farmers, and others, whose land is hunted over by the 
Piedmont and Middleburg foxhounds ; and last occurred 
a great comedy event — a mule race, free for all, in which 
one of the hunting men, in uniform, made such a hand- 
some showing against a rabble of white and colored 
boys, all of them yelling, all of them beating their long- 
eared animals with sticks, that he would have won, had 
he not deliberately pulled his mount and "thrown" the 
race. 

The last event was not yet finished when my com- 
panion, who had become nervous about his interurban 
trolley, got into a machine to drive to Bluemont. 

175 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

"Of course," he said as we parted, "we '11 miss you 
to-night." 

"Oh," I said, "I hope not. I expect to get there." 

"I don't see how you can make it," said he. "You 
have a lot of material to gather." 

"I shall work fast." 

"Well," said he, trying to speak like the voice of Con- 
science, "I hope you won't forget your duty — that 's all." 

"I proposed this party to-night. It is my duty to be 
there." 

"You did n't make any definite engagement," said he, 
"and, besides, your first duty is to your editors and your 
readers." 

Having tossed me this disgusting thought, he departed 
in a cloud of dust, leaving me sad and alone, but not yet 
altogether in despair. 

The last race over, I hastened to Mr. Thomas's house, 
which, by this time, looked like an old English hunt- 
ing print come to life, for it was now crowded with pink 
coats. For most of the technical information contained 
in this chapter I am indebted to various gentlemen 
whom I encountered there. 

In Virginia^which is the oldest fox-hunting State in 
the Union, the sport having been practised there for 
nearly two centuries — the words "hunt" or "hunting" 
never by any chance apply to shooting, but always refer 
to hunting the fox with horse and hounds. A "hunter" 
is not a man but a horse ; a huntsman is not a member 
of the hunt but a hunt-servant; the "field" may be the 

176 



FOX-HUNTING IN VIRGINIA 

terrain ridden over by the hunt, or it may be the group 
of riders following the hounds — "hunt followers," 
''hunting men," and "hunting women." 

The following items, from "Baily's Hunting Direc- 
tory," a British annual, give some idea of certain pri- 
mary formalities and practicalities of hunting: 

HINTS TO BEGINNERS 

Buy the best horses you can afford ; but remember that a work- 
ably sound horse, though blemished or a bit gone in the wind, will 
give you plenty of fun, if you do not knock him about. 

Obey the Master's orders without argument; in the field he is 
supreme. 

Hold up your hat if you view the fox away ; do not halloa. If 
none of the hunt servants see your uplifted hat, go and tell the 
nearest of them. 

Ride fast at water; if hounds clear a brook a horse has a good 
chance of doing so. Steady your horse and let him take his own 
pace at big timber. 

Keep well away from hounds, and down wind of them at a 
check. The steam from heated horses adds a fresh difficulty to 
recovery of lost scent. Look out for signs that may indicate the 
whereabouts or passing of the fox. Huddling sheep, staring cat- 
tle, chattering magpies, circling rooks, may mean that they see, 
or have just seen, the fox. 

Never lark over fences ; it tires your horse needlessly and may 
cause damage and annoy the farmer. 

Never take a short cut through a covert that is likely to be 
drawn during the day ; and keep well away from a covert that 

177 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

hounds are drawing if you start for home before the day's sport 
is over, lest you head the fox. 

Always await your turn at a gate or gap ; do not try and push 
forward in a crowd. 

If you follow a pilot, do not "ride in his pocket" ; give him 
plenty of room, say fifteen lengths, at fences, or if he falls you 
might jump on him. 

If your horse kicks, tie a knot of red ribbon in his tail. N. B. — 
Do not be guilty of using this "rogue's badge" for the sake of 
getting room in a crowd, as some men have been known to do. 

If a man is down and in danger of being kicked, put your own 
saddle over his head. 

HINTS CONCERNING THE HUNTER 
It should be remembered that in the ordinary routine the horse 
is fed three or four times a day. On a hunting day he gets one 
good feed early in the morning and loses one or two feeds. 
Moreover, he is doing hard work for hours together, with a 
weight on his back. Carry a couple of forage biscuits in your 
pocket to give him during the day. Also get off and relieve him 
of your weight when you can do so. 

When he is brought home, put him in his stall or box, slack 
the girths, take off the bridle and give him his gruel at once. 
Throw a rug over his loins and pull his ears for a minute or two. 

An old horse needs more clothing than a young one. 

Condition is a matter of seasons, not of months ; a horse in 
hard condition can take without injury a fall that would disable a 
soft one for weeks. 

In old times many of Virginia's country gentlemen 
kept their own packs, but though some followed the 

178 



FOX-HUNTING IN VIRGINIA 

hounds according to the English tradition, there devel- 
oped a less sportsmanlike style of hunting called ''hill- 
topping," under which the hunting men rode to an ele- 
vated point and watched' the hounds run the fox, with- 
out themselves attempting to follow across country and 
be in at the kill. As a result, the fox was, if caught, 
torn to pieces by the hounds, and the brush and head 
were infrequently saved. 

Under the traditions of English fox-hunting — tradi- 
tions the strictness of which can hardly be exaggerated 
— "hilltopping" is a more than doubtful sport, and, since 
organized fox-hunting in the United States is taken en- 
tirely from the English idea, the practice is tabooed on 
first-class hunting regions. 

The origin of hilltopping is, however, easily under- 
stood. The old fox-hunters simply did not, as a rule, 
have horses adequate to negotiate the country, hunters 
not having been developed to any great extent in Amer- 
ica in early times. 

The perfect type of hunter is of thoroughbred stock. 
By the term "thoroughbred" horsemen do not mean 
highly bred horses of any kind, as is sometimes sup- 
posed, but only running horses. All such horses come 
originally of British stock, for it is in Great Britain that 
the breed has been developed, although it traces back, 
through a number of centuries, to a foundation of 
Arabian blood. I am informed that climatic and other 
conditions in a certain part of Ireland are for some rea- 
son peculiarly favorable to the development of hunters 

1/9 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

and that these conditions are dupHcated in the Pied- 
mont section of Virginia, and nowhere else in the 
whole world. Only the stanchest, bravest, fastest type 
of horse is suited for hunting in Virginia, and for this 
reason the more experienced riders to hounds prefer 
the thoroughbred, though half-bred and three-quarter- 
bred horses are also used to some extent, the thorough- 
bred often being too mettlesome, when he becomes ex- 
cited, for any but the best riders. The finest qualities 
of a horse are brought out in hunting in the Piedmont 
section, for the pace here is very fast — much faster than 
in England, though it should be added that in the Eng- 
Hsh hunting country there are more hedges than over 
here, and that the jumps are, upon the whole, stiffer. 

The speed of the Piedmont Hunt and other hunts in 
Virginia is doubtless due to the use of southern hounds, 
these being American hounds, smaller and faster than 
English hounds, from which, however, they were orig- 
inally bred. The desirable qualities in a pack of hounds 
are uniformity of type, substance, speed, and color. 
These points have to do not only with the style of a 
pack, but also with its hunting quality. Thus in the 
Piedmont pack they breed for a red hound with white 
markings, so that the pack may have an individual ap- 
pearance, but in all packs a great effort is made to se- 
cure even speed, for a slow hound lags, while a fast one 
becomes an individual hunter. The unusual hound is 
therefore likely to be "drafted" from the pack. 

There has been a long controversy as to whether the 

i8o 



FOX-HUNTING IN VIRGINIA 

English or American type of hound is best suited for 
hunting- in this country, and the matter seems still to 
remain one of opinion. Probably the best English pack 
in the United States is that of Mr. A. Henry Higginson. 
Some years since, Mr. Higginson and Mr. Harry 
Worcester Smith, of Worcester, Massachusetts, master 
of the Grafton pack, made a bet of $5000 a side, each 
backing his own hounds, the question being that of the 
general suitability of the American versus the English 
hound for American country. The trials were made in 
the Piedmont region of Virginia, and Mr. Smith's 
American hounds won the wager for him. 

In the last ten or twenty years hunting in the United 
States has been organized under the Hunts Committee 
of the National Steeplechase Association. Practically 
all the important hunting organizations are members of 
this association, there being forty of these: eleven in 
Virginia, nine in Pennsylvania, six in New York, four 
in Massachusetts, three each in Maryland and New Jer- 
sey, and one each in Connecticut, Vermont, Ohio, and 
Michigan — the Grosse Pointe Hounds, near Detroit, be- 
ing the most westerly of recognized hunts, although 
there is some unrecognized hunting near Chicago. 

An idea of the comparative importance of hunting in 
the United States and in England may be gathered from 
the fact that in England and Wales alone there are more 
than 180 packs of foxhounds, 88 packs of beagles, and 
16 packs of staghounds, while Ireland and Scotland 
have many also. The war, however, has struck hard at 

181 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

hunting in the British Isles. Baily's Hunting Directory 
for 191 5-16, says: 

"Hunting has given her best, for of those who have 
gone from the hunting field to join the colors, the mas- 
ters lead, as they have led in more happy days, with a 
tale of over 80 per cent, of their number, the hunt sec- 
retaries following with over 50 per cent., while the hunt 
servants show over 30 per cent. No exact data are 
available to tell of the multitude from the rank and file 
that has followed this magnificent lead, excepting that 
from all the hunts there comes the same report, that 
practically every man fit for service has responded to 
the call." 

It is estimated that 17,000 horses were drafted from 
hunting for the cavalry in England at the beginning 
of the war; and it is to be noticed that so soon after 
the outbreak as July, 19 15, the ''Directory" published 
a list of names of well-known hunting men killed in ac- 
tion, which occupied more than seven large pages printed 
in small type. 

Under the heading "Incidents of the 19H-15 Sea- 
son" are to be found many items of curious early war- 
time interest, a few of which I quote : 

Lady Stalbridge announces willingness to act as field master of 
the South and West Wilts Hounds during her husband's absence 
in France. 

Lieutenant Charles Ronier Williams took out to the front a 
pack of beagles, with which the officers of the Second Cavalry 
Brigade hoped to hunt Belgian hares. 



FOX-HUNTING IN VIRGINIA 

Capt. E, K. Bradbury, a member of the Cahir Harriers, earned 
the V. C. at Nery, but died from wounds. 



The Grafton Hounds have seventy-six followers with the col- 



ors. 



Admiral Sir David Beatty, of North Sea fame, has a hunting 
box at Brooksby Hall, in the Melton Mowbray country. 

Five members of the Crawley and Horsham Hounds have 
been killed, three wounded, and two are missing. 

Quorn fields down to about 30, instead of 300 last season. 

Captain the Honorable R. B. F. Robertson (Twenty-first Lanc- 
ers) a prisoner of war. He took over the North Tipperary 
Hounds in May, and, of course, did not get a chance to have any 
sport. 

We now learn that the French authorities have discouraged 
fox-hunting behind the fighting lines. So did the Germans. 
One day British hounds took up the scent on their own initiative. 
The usual followers had bigger game afoot, and were in the 
thick of an engagement. The Germans gained ground and oc- 
cupied the kennels. When the hounds returned from their chase 
and challenged the intruders they were shot down one by one. 

Such is the lore I had acquired when the motor came 
for me; whereupon, taking a few sandwiches to sus- 
tain me until supper time, I set forth through the night 
by Ford, for the station at The Plains. 

The pubHcation of the larger part of the foregoing 
chapter on fox hunting, in "Collier's Weekly," brought 
me a number of letters containing hunting anecdotes. 

183 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Mr. J. R. Smith of Martinsville, Virginia, calls my 
attention to marked difference in character between the 
red fox and the gray. The red fox, he says, depends 
upon his legs to elude the hounds, and will sometimes 
lead the hunt twenty-five miles from the place where he 
gets up, but the gray fox depends on cunning, and is 
more prone to run a few miles and "tack." 

Mr. Smith tells the following story illustrative of the 
gray fox's amazing artfulness : 

"We had started a fox on three different occasions," 
he writes, "running him a warm chase for about four 
miles and losing him every time in a sheep pasture. 
Finally we stationed a servant in that pasture to see 
what became of the fox. We started him again and 
he took the same route to the pasture. There the mys- 
tery was solved. The fox jumped on the back of a large 
ram, which, in fright, ran off about half a mile. The 
fox then jumped off" and continued his run. When the 
hounds came up we urged them on to the point where 
the fox dismounted, and soon had his brush." 

Another correspondent calls my attention to the fact 
that, in Virginia, hunting is not merely the sport of the 
rich, but that the farmers are enthusiastic members of 
the field — sometimes at the expense of their cattle and 
crops. He relates the following story illustrative of the 
point of view of the sporting Virginia farmer : 

"A man from the Department of Agriculture came 
down into our section to look over farms and give ad- 

184 



FOX-HUNTING IN VIRGINIA 

vice to farmers. He went to see one farmer in my 
county and found that he had absolutely nothing grow- 
ing, and that his livestock consisted of three hunters 
and thirty-two couples of hounds. The agricultural ex- 
pert was scandalized. He told the farmer he ought to 
begin at once to raise hogs. 'You can feed them what 
you feed the dogs,' he said, 'and have good meat for your 
family aside from what you sell.' 

''After hearing his visitor out, the farmer looked off 
across the country and spat ruminatively. 

" 'I ain't never seen no hawg that could catch a fox,' 
he said, and with that turned and went into the barn, 
evidently regarding the matter as closed. Clearly he 
did not share the view of the Irishman who dismissed 
fox hunting with the remark that a fox was 'damned 
hard to catch and no good when you got him.' " 



185 



CHAPTER XVII 
'^A CERTAIN PARTY" 

Kind are her answers, 

But her performance keeps no day; 

Breaks time, as dancers 

From their own music when they stray. 

Lost is our freedom 

When we submit to women so : 

Why do we need 'em 

When, in their best, they work our woe? 

— Thomas Campion. 

THE motor ride to The Plains was a cold and 
rough one. I remember that we had to ford a 
stream or two, and that once, where the mud had 
been churned up and made deep by the wheels of many 
vehicles, we almost stuck. Excepting at the fords, the 
road was dusty, and the dust was kept in circulation by 
the feet of countless saddle horses, on which men from 
the country to the south of Upperville were riding home 
from the races. All the way to The Plains our lights 
kept picking up these riders, sometimes alone, some- 
times in groups, all of them going our way, we taking 
their dust until we overhauled them, then giving them 
ours. 

Dust was over me like a close-fitting gray veil when 
I reached the railroad station only to find that the train 

i86 



"A CERTAIN PARTY" 

was late. I had a magazine in my bag, but the light 
in the waiting-room was poor, so I took a place near 
the stove and gave myself up to anticipations of a bath, 
a comfortable room, clean clothing, and a good supper 
with my companion — and another companion much 
more beautiful. 

. I tried to picture her as she would look. She would 
be in evening dress, of course. After thinking over dif- 
ferent colors, and trying them upon her in my mind, I 
decided that her gown should be of a delicate pink, and 
should be made of some frail, beautiful material which 
would float about her like gossamer when she moved, 
and shimmer like the light of dawn upon the dew. You 
know the sort of gown I mean : one of those gowns upon 
which a man is afraid to lay his finger-tips lest the ma- 
terial melt away beneath them ; a gown which, he feels, 
was never touched by seamstress of the human species, 
but was made by fairies out of woven moonlight, star 
dust, afterglow, and the fragrance of flowers. Such a 
gown upon a lovely woman is man's proof that woman 
is indeed the thing which so often he believes her — that 
she is more goddess than earthly being ; for man knows 
well that he himself is earthly, and that a costume made 
from such dream stuffs and placed on him, would not 
last out the hour. He has but to look up at the stars 
to realize the infinity of space, and, similarly, but to 
look at her in her evening gown to realize the divinity of 
woman. 

And that is where she has him. For it is n't so ! 

187 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

At last came the tram — just the dingy train to stop 
at such a station. I boarded it, found a seat, and con- 
tinued to dream dreams as we rattled on toward Wash- 
ington. 

Even when I found myself walking through that great 
terminal by which all railroads enter the capital, I 
hardly believed that I was there, nor did I feel entirely 
myself until I had reached my room in the New Wil- 
lard. 

Having started my bath, I went and knocked upon 
the door of the near-by room where the clerk had told 
me I should find my fellow traveler. 

*'0h," he said, without enthusiasm as he discovered 
me. "You 're here, are you?" 

He looked imposing and severe in his evening dress. 
I felt correspondingly dirty and humble. 

''Yes," I replied meekly. "Any news?" 

"None," he replied. "I 've reserved a table at Har- 
vey's. They dance there. At first they said there was 
not a table to be had — Saturday night, you know — but 
I told them who was to be with us, and they changed 
their minds." 

"Good. I '11 be dressed in a little while. Silk hats?" 

He nodded. I returned to my own room. 

Less than an hour later, my toilet completed, I re- 
joined him, and together we descended, in full regalia, 
to the lobby. 

"Shall we take a taxi?" he suggested, as we passed 
out of the side entrance. 




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''A CERTAIN PARTY" 

*'How far away is the theater?" 

*T don't know." 

We asked the carriage starter. He said it was only 
two or three blocks. 

'Tet 's walk," I said. 

"I don't feel like walking," he returned. 

We rode. 

The theater was just emptying when we arrived. 

*T suppose we'd better let the cab go?" I said. 
"There '11 be quite a while to wait while she 's chang- 
ing." 

"Better keep it," he disagreed. "Might not find an- 
other." 

We kept it. 

At the stage door there was confusion. Having com- 
pleted its week in Washington, the play was about to 
move elsewhere, and furniture w^as already coming out 
into the narrow passage, and being piled up to be taken 
on wagons to the train. It took us some time to find 
the doorman, and it took the doorman — as it always does 
take doormen — a long, long time to depart into the un- 
known region of dressing rooms, with the cards we gave 
him, and a still longer time to return. 

"Says to wait," he grunted when he came back. 

Meanwhile more and more furniture had come out, 
menacing our shins and our beautifully polished hats 
in passing, and leaving us less room in which to stand. 

We waited. 

After ten minutes had passed, I remarked : 

189 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

"I wish we had let the taxi go." 

After twenty minutes I remarked: 

"I always feel like an idiot when I have to wait at a 
stage door." 

"I don't see why you do it, then," said he. 

''And I hate it worse when I 'm in evening dress. I 
hate the way the actors look at us, when they come out. 
They think we 're a couple of Johnnies." 

"And supposing they do?" 

I do not know how long this unsatisfactory dialogue 
might have continued had not some one come to the 
inside of the stage door and spoken to the doorman, 
whereat he indicated us with a gesture and said : 

"There they are." 

At this a woman emerged. The light was dim, but I 
saw that she wore no hat and had on an aoron. As she 
came toward us we advanced. 

"You wait for madame?" she asked, with the accent 
of a Frenchwoman. 

"Yes." 

"Madame receive your telegram only this afternoon," 
she said. "All week, she say, she wait to hear. This 
morning she have receive a telegram from Mr. Woods 
that say she mus' come to New York. She think you 
not coming, so she say 'Yes.' Then she receive your 
message. She don't know where to reach you. She 
can do nossing. She is desolated ! She mus' fly to the 
train. She is ver' sorry. She hope that maybe the 
gentlemans will be in Baltimore nex' week? Yes?" 

190 



''A CERTAIN PARTY" 

"You mean she can't come to-night?" 

'*Yes, monsieur. She cannot. She are fill with re- 
gret. She—" 

"Perhaps," said my companion, recovering, "we can 
drive her to the train?" 

The maid, however, did not seem to wish to discuss 
this point. She shook her head and said : 

"A/ladame ver' sorry she cannot come." 

"But I say," repeated my companion, "that we shall be 
delighted to drive her to the train if she wishes." 

"She ver' sorry," persisted the maid negatively. 

"Oh, I see," he said. "Very well. Please say to her 
that we are sorry, too." 

"Yes, monsieur." The maid retired. 

"I want something to eat," I remarked as we passed 
down the long furniture-piled passage leading to the 
street. 

"So do I. We have that table at Harvey's." 

"I know; but--" 

"That 's a fact," he put in. "I mentioned her name. 
We can't very well go there without her." 

"And all dressed up like a pair of goats." 

"No." 

"There 's always the hotel." 

"I don't want to go back there — not now." 

"Neither do I. Let 's make it the Shoreham," I sug- 
gested as we emerged upon the street. 

"All right." Then, looking across the sidewalk, he 
added : "There 's that damned taxi !" 

191 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

''Yes. We '11 drive around there in it." 

"No," said he, "send it away. I don't feel like rid- 
ing." 

We walked to the Shoreham. The cafe looked cheer- 
ful, as it always does. We ordered an extensive sup- 
per. It was good. There were pretty women in the 
room, but we looked at them with the austere eyes of 
disillusioned men, and talked cynically of life. I cannot 
recall any of the things we said, though I remember 
thinking at the time that both of us were being rather 
brilliant, in an icy way. I suppose it was mainly about 
women. That was to be expected. Women, indeed! 
What were women to us? Nothing! And pretty 
women, least of all. Ah, pretty women! Pretty 
women ! . . . Yes, yes ! 

I had ordered fruit to finish off the meal, and I re- 
member that as the dish was set upon the table, it oc- 
curred to me that we had made a very pleasant party of 
it after all. 

"Do you know," I said, as I helped myself to some 
hothouse grapes, "I 've had a bully evening. It has 
been fine to sit here and have a party all to ourselves. 
I 'm not so sorry that she did not come !" 

Then I ate a grape or two. 

They were very handsome grapes, but they were sour. 



192 



CHAPTER XVIII 
THE LEGACY OF HATE 

. . . Immortal hate, 
And courage never to submit or yield. 

— Paradise Lost. 

THE last time I went abroad, a Briton on the boat 
told me a story about an American tourist who 
asked an old English gardener how they made 
such splendid lawns over there. 

''First we cut the grass/' said the gardener, "and then 
we roll it. Then we cut it, and then we roll it." 

'That 's just what we do," said the American. 

"Ah," returned the gardener, "but over here we 've 
been doing it five hundred years !" 

In Liverpool another Englishman told me the same 
story. Three or four others told it to me in London. 
In Kent I heard it twice, and in Sussex five or six times. 
After going to Oxford and the Thames I lost count. 

In the South my companion and I had a similar ex- 
perience with the story about that daughter of the Con- 
federacy who declared she had always thought "damn 
Yankee" one word. In Maryland that story amused us, 
in Virginia it seemed to lose a little of its edge, and we 
are proud to this day because, in the far southern States, 
we managed to grin and bear it. 

193 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Doubtless the young lady likewise thought that "you- 
all" was one word. However I refrained from sug- 
gesting that, lest it be taken for an attempt at retalia- 
tion. And really there was no occasion to retaliate, for 
the story was always told with good-humored apprecia- 
tion not only of the dig at ''Yankees" — collectively all 
Northerners are "Yankees" in the South — but also of 
the sweet absurdity of the "unreconstructed" point of 
view. 

Speaking broadly of the South, I believe that there 
survives little real bitterness over the Civil War and the 
destructive and grotesquely named period of "recon- 
struction." When a southern belle of to-day damns 
Yankees, she means by it, I judge, about as much, and 
about as little, as she does by the kisses she gives young 
men who bear to her the felicitous southern relation- 
ship of "kissing cousins." 

Even from old Confederate soldiers I heard no ex- 
pressions of violent feeling. They spoke gently, hand- 
somely and often humorously of the war, but never 
harshly. Real hate, I think, remains chiefly in one 
quarter : in the hearts of some old ladies, the wives and 
widows of Confederate soldiers — for there are but few 
mothers of the soldiers left. The wonder is that more 
of the old ladies of the South have not held to their re- 
sentment, for, as I have heard many a soldier say, 
women are the greatest sufferers from war. One vet- 
eran said to me: "My arm was shattered and had to 
be amputated at the shoulder. There was no anesthetic. 

194 



THE LEGACY OF HATE 

Of course I suffered, but I never suffered as my mother 
did when she learned what I had endured." 

Be they haters of the North or not, the old ladies of 
the South are among its chief glories, and it should be 
added that another of those glories is the appreciation 
that the South has for the white-haired heroines who 
are its mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers, 
and the unfailing natural homage that it pays them. I 
do not mean by this merely that children and grandchil- 
dren have been taught to treat their elders with respect. 
I do not mean merely that they love them. The thing 
of which I speak is beyond family feeling, beyond the 
respect of youth for age. It is a strong, superb senti- 
ment, something as great as it is subtle, which floods 
the South, causing it to love and reverence its old ladies 
collectively, and with a kind of national spirit, like the 
love and reverence of a proud people for its flag. 

Among young men, I met many who told me, with 
suitable pride, of the parts played by their fathers and 
uncles in the war. Of these only one spoke with heat. 
He was a Georgian, and when I mentioned to him 
that, in all my inquiries, I had heard of no cases of 
atrocious attacks upon women by soldiers — such attacks 
as we heard of at the time of the German inva- 
sion of Belgium and France — he replied with a great 
show of feeling that I had been misinformed, and that 
many women had been outraged by northern soldiers 
in the course of Sherman's march to the sea. At this 
my heart sank, for I had treasured the belief that, de- 

195 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

spite the roughness of war, unprotected women had 
generally been safe from the soldiers of North and 
South alike. What was my relief, then, on later receiv- 
ing from this same young man a letter in which he de- 
clared that he had been mistaken, and that after many 
inquiries in Georgia he had been unable to learn of a 
single case of such crime. If it is indeed true that such 
things did not occur in the Civil War — and I believe con- 
fidently that it is true — then we have occasion, in the 
light of the European War, to revise the popular belief 
that of all wars civil war is the most horrible. 

The attitude of the modern South (the "New South" 
which, by the way, one Southerner described to me as 
meaning "northern capital and smoke") toward its 
own "unreconstructed" citizens, for all its sympathy and 
tenderness, is not without a glint of gentle humor. 
More than once, when my companion and I were re- 
ceived in southern homes with a cordiality that pre- 
cluded any thought of sectional feeling, we were never- 
theless warned by members of the younger generation 
— and their eyes would twinkle as they said it — to "look 
out for mother; she 's unreconstructed^" And you may 
be sure that when we were so warned we did "look 
out." It was well to do so! For though the mother 
might be a frail old lady, past seventy, with the face 
of an angel and the normal demeanor of a saint, we 
could see her bridle, as we were presented to her, over 
the thought there here were two Yankees in her home 
— Yankees! — we could see the light come flashing up 

196 



THE LEGACY OF HATE 

into her eyes as they encountered ours, and could 
feel beneath the veil of her austere civility the dagger 
points of an eternal enmity. By dint of self-control 
on her part, and the utmost effort upon ours to be 
tactful, the presentation ceremony was got over with, 
and after some formal speeches, resembling those 
which, one fancies, may be exchanged by opposing gen- 
erals under a flag of truce, we would be rescued from 
her, removed from the room, before her forbearance 
should be strained, by our presence, to the point of break- 
ing. A baleful look would follow us as we withdrew, 
and we would retire with a better understanding of the 
flaming spirit which, through that long, bloody conflict 
against overwhelming odds in wealth, supplies, and 
men, sustained the South, and which at last enabled 
-it to accept defeat as nobly as it had accepted earlier 
victories . . . How one loves a gentle old lady who can 
hate like that ! 

In this chapter, when it appeared originally, in "Col- 
lier's Weekly," I made the statement that I had seldom 
spent an hour in conversation with a Southerner with- 
out hearing some mention of the Civil War, and that I 
had heard other Northerners remark upon this matter, 
and express surprise at the tenacity with which the war 
holds its place in the foreground of the southern mind. 

This, like many another of my southern observations, 
brought me letters from readers of "Collier's," residing 
in the South. A great number of the letters thus elic- 
ited, as well as comments made upon these chapters by 

197 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

the southern press, have been of no small interest to me. 
On at least one subject (the question discussed in the 
next chapter, as to whether the expression "you-all" is 
ever used in the singular) my correspondents have con- 
vinced me that my earlier statement was an error, while 
on other subjects they have modified my views, and on 
still others made my convictions more profound. 
Where it has been possible, and where it has seemed, for 
one reason or another, to be worth while, I have en- 
deavored, while revising the story of my southern wan- 
derings for this book, to make note of the other fellow's 
point of view, especially in cases where he disagrees 
with me. 

The following, then, is from a letter written on the 
stationery of Washington and Lee University, and ap- 
plies to certain statements contained in this chapter : 

In 1813, Thomas Jefferson wrote to a newspaper publisher: 
"Were I the pubhsher of a paper, instead of the usual division 
into Foreign, Domestic, etc., I think I should distribute everything 
under the following heads : i. True. 2. Probable. 3. Wanting 
confirmation. 4. Lies, and be careful in subsequent papers to 
correct all errors in preceding ones." 

Allow me to suggest that your story might, under Mr. Jefter- 
son's category, be placed under "2." Perhaps you went to see 
" The Birth of a Nation " before you wrote it. It has been my 
experience that my acquaintances among the F. F. V.'s have 
been far more interested in whether Boston or Brooklyn would 
win the pennant than in discussing the Civil War. By the young 
men of the South the War was forgotten long ago. 

This letter has caused me to wonder whether the fre- 
quency with which my companion and I heard the Civil 

198 



THE LEGACY OF HATE 

War discussed, may not, perhaps, have been due, at 
least in part, to our own inquiries, resuking from the 
consuming interest that we had in hearing of the War 
from those who Uved where it was fought. 

Yet, after all, it seems to me most natural that the 
South should remember, while the North forgets. 
Not all Northerners were in the war. But all South- 
erners were ; if a boy was big enough to carry a gun, he 
went. The North almost completely escaped invasion, 
and upon one occasion when a southern army did march 
through northern territory, the conduct of the invading 
troops toward the civilian population (the false Barbara 
Frietchie legend to the contrary notwithstanding) was 
so exemplary as to set a record which is probably un- 
equaled in history.^ The South, upon the other hand, 
was constantly under invasion, and the record of de- 
struction wrought by northern armies in the valley of 
the Shenandoah, on the March to the Sea, and in some 
other instances, is writ in poverty and mourning unto 
this day. 

Thus, except politically, the North now feels not the 
least effect from the war. But the South knew the 
terrors of invasion and the pangs of conquest, and is 
only growing strong again after having been ruined — 
as instanced by the fact, which I came across the other 
day, that the tax returns from one of the southern 
States have, for the first time since the Civil War, 
reached the point at which they stood when it began. 

1 See chapter on Colonel Taylor and General Lee. 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

So, very naturally, while the War has begun to 
take its place in the northern mind along with the 
Revolutionary War, as something to be studied in school 
under the heading "United States History," it has not, 
in southern eyes, become altogether "book history," but 
is history that lives — in swords hanging upon the walls 
of many homes, in old faded letters, in sacks of worth- 
less Confederate bills, in the ruins of great houses, in 
lovingly preserved gray uniforms, in southern battle 
fields, and in southern burial grounds where rows upon 
rows of tombstones, drawn up in company front, stand 
like gray armies forever on parade. 

Small wonder if, amid its countless tragic memorials, 
the South does not forget. The strange thing is that bit- 
terness has gone so soon ; that remembering the agonies 
of war and the abuses of reconstruction, the South does 
not to-day hate the North as violently as ever. If to err 
is human, the North has, in its treatment of the South, 
richly proved its humanness; and if forgiveness is di- 
vine, the South has, by the same token, attained some- 
thing like divinity. 

Had the numbskull North understood these things as 
it should have understood them, there would not now be 
a solid Democratic South. 

Such rancor as remains is, I believe, strongest in the 
smaller towns in those States which suffered the great- 
est hardships. I know, for instance, of one lady, from 
a little city in Virginia, who refused to enter the Massa- 
chusetts Building at the Chicago World's Fair, and 

200 



THE LEGACY OF HATE 

there are still to be found, in Virginia, ladies who do 
not leave their houses on the Fourth of July because 
they prefer not to look upon the Stars and Stripes. The 
Confederate flag is still, in a sense, the flag of the South. 
Southerners love it as one loves a pressed flower from 
a mother's bridal wreath. When the Eleventh Cavalry 
rode from Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, to Winchester, 
Virginia, a few years since, they saw many Confederate 
flags, but only one Union flag, and that in the hands of 
a negro child. However, war had not then broken out 
in Europe. It would be different now. 

A Virginia lady told me of having gone to a dentist 
in Winchester, Virginia, and having taken her little 
niece with her. The child watched the dentist put a 
rubber dam in her aunt's mouth, and then, childlike, be- 
gan to ask questions. She was a northern child, and 
she had evidently heard some one in the town speak of 
Sheridan's ride. 

''Auntie," she said, "was Sheridan a Northerner or a 
Southerner?" 

Owing to the rubber dam the aunt was unable to re- 
ply, but the dentist answered for her. "He was a 
drunken Yankee !" he declared vehemently. 

When, later, the rubber dam was removed, the aunt 
protested. 

"Doctor," she reproved, "you should not have said 
such a thing to my niece. She is from New York." 

"Then," returned the unrepentant dentist, "she has 
heard the truth for once!" 

201 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Doubtless this man was an inheritor of hate, hke the 
descendants of one uncompromisingly bitter old South- 
erner whose will, to be seen among the records of the 
Hanover County courthouse, in Virginia, bequeaths to 
his "children and grandchildren and their descendants 
throughout all future generations, the bitter hatred and 
everlasting malignity of my heart and soul against the 
Yankees, including all people north of Mason and 
Dixon's line." 



202 



CHAPTER XIX 

"YOU-ALL" AND OTHER SECTIONAL 
MISUNDERSTANDINGS 

Let us make an honorable retreat. 

— As You Like It. 

THOSE who write school histories and wish them 
adopted by southern schools have to handle 
the Civil War with gloves. Such words as 
"rebel" and ''rebellion" are resented in the South, and 
the historian must go softly in discussing slavery, 
though he may put on the loud pedal in speaking 
of State Rights, the fact being that the South not 
only knows now, but, as evidenced by the utterances 
of her leading men, from Jefferson to Lee, knew 
long before the war that slavery was a great curse; 
whereas, on the question of State Rights, including 
the theoretical right to secede from the Union — this 
being the actual question over which the South took 
up arms — there is much to be said on the southern 
side. Colonel Robert Bingham, superintendent of the 
Bingham School, Asheville, North Carolina, has made 
an exhaustive study of the question of secession, and 
has set forth his findings in several scholarly and tem- 
perately written booklets. 

Colonel Bingham proves absolutely, by quotation of 

203 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

their own words, that the framers of the Constitution 
regarded that document as a compact between the sev- 
eral States. He shows that three of the States (Vir- 
ginia, New York, and Rhode Island) joined in this com- 
pact conditionally, with the clear purpose of resuming 
their independent sovereignty as States, should the gen- 
eral government use its power for the oppression of the 
States; that up to the time of the Mexican War the 
New England States contended for, not against, the 
right to secede; that John Quincy Adams went so far 
as to negotiate with England with a view to the seces- 
sion of the New England States, because of Jefferson's 
Embargo Act, and moreover that up to 1840 the United 
States Government used as a textbook for cadets at 
West Point, Rawle's "View of the Constitution," a book 
which teaches that the Union is dissoluble. Robert E. 
Lee and Jefferson Davis, were, therefore, in all proba- 
bility, given this book as students at West Point, and 
consequently, if we would have honest history, we must 
face the astonishing fact that there is evidence to show 
that they learned the doctrine of secession at the United 
States Military Academy. 

Colonel Bingham, who, it may be remarked, served 
with distinction in the Confederate Army, has very 
kindly supplemented, in a letter to me, his published 
statements. He writes: 

Secession was legal theoretically, but practically the conditions 
on which the thirteen Independent Republics, covering a little 
strip on the Atlantic coast, came to an agreement, could not 

204 



"YOU-ALL" 

possibly be applied to the great inter-Oceanic Empire into which 
these thirteen Independent RepubHcs had developed. 

"Theory is a good horse in the stable, but may make an arrant 
jade on the journey" — to paraphrase Goldsmith — and the only 
way in which these irreconcilable differences could be settled was 
by bullet and bayonet, which settled them right and finally. 

Once such matters as these are fully understood in the 
North, there will be left but one grave issue between 
North and South, that issue being over the question of 
whether or not Southerners, under any circumstances, 
use the phrase "you-all" in the singular. 

"Whatever you write of the South," said our hos- 
tess at a dinner party in Virginia, "don't make the mis- 
take of representing any one from this paht of the coun- 
try, white oh black, educated oh ignorant, as saying 'you- 
air meaning one person only." 

When I remarked mildly that it seemed to me I had 
often seen the phrase so used in books, and heard it in 
plays, eight or ten southern ladies and gentlemen at the 
table pounced upon me, all at once. "Yes !" they agreed, 
with a kind of polite violence, "books and plays by 
Yankees !" 

"If," one of the gentlemen explained, "you write to 
a friend who has a family, and say, according to the 
northern practice, 'I hope to see you when you come to 
my town,' you write something which is really ambigu- 
ous, since the word 'you' may refer only to your friend, 
or may refer also to his family. Our southern 'you-all' 
makes it explicit." 

205 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

I told him that in the North we also used the word 
"all" in connection with "you," though we accented the 
two evenly, and did not compound them, but he seemed 
to believe that "you" followed by "all" belonged exclu- 
sively to the South. 

The argument continued almost constantly through- 
out the meal. Not until coffee was served did the sub- 
ject seem to be exhausted. But it was not, for after 
pouring a demi-tasse our hostess lifted a lump of sugar 
in the tongs, and looking me directly in the eye inquired : 
"Do you-all take sugah?" 

Undoubtedly it would have been wiser, and politer, 
to let this pass, but the discussion had filled me with 
curiosity, not only because of my interest in the localism, 
but also because of the amazing intensity with which it 
had been discussed. 

"But," I exclaimed, "you just said 'you-all,' apparently 
addressing me. Didn't you use it in the singular?" 

No sooner had I spoken than I was sorry. Every one 
looked disconcerted. There was silence for a moment. 
I was very much ashamed. 

"Oh, no," she said at last. "When I said 'you-all' I 
meant you and Mr. Morgan." (She pronounced it 
"Moh-gan," with a lovely drawl.) As she made this 
statement, she blushed, poor lady ! 

Being to blame for her discomfiture, I could not bear to 
see her blush, and looked away, but only to catch the eye 
of my companion, and to read in its evil gleam the 
thought: "Of course they use it in the singular. But 

206 



"YOU-ALL" 

are n't you ashamed of having tripped up such a pretty 
creature on a point of dialect?" 

Though my interest in the southern idiom had caused 
me to forget about the sugar, my hostess had not for- 
gotten. 

"Well," she said, still balancing the lump above the 
cup, and continuing gamely to put the question in the 
same form, and to me: ''Do you-all take sugah, oh 
not?" 

I had no idea how my companion took his coffee, but 
it seemed to me that tardy politeness now demanded that 
I tacitly — or at least demi-tacitly — accede to the alleged 
plural intent of the question. Therefore, I replied : *'Mr. 
Morgan takes two lumps. I don't take any, thanks." 

Late that night as we were returning to our hotel, my 
companion said to me somewhat tartly : 'Tn case such 
a thing comes up again, I wish you would remember that 
sugar in my coffee makes me ill." 

"Well, why didn't you say so?" 

"Because," he returned, "I thought that you-all ought 
to do the answering. It seemed best for me-all to keep 
quiet and try to look plural under the singular con- 
ditions." 

No single thing I ever wrote has brought to me so 
many letters, nor letters so uniform in sentiment (albeit 
widely different in expression), as the foregoing, seem- 
ingly unimportant tale, printed originally in "Collier's 
Weekly." 

207 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Some one has pointed out that various communities 
have ''fighting words," and as the letters poured in I 
began to reaUze that in discussing "you-all" I had inad- 
vertently hit upon a term which aroused the ire of the 
South — or rather, that I had aroused ire by implying 
that the expression is sometimes used in the singular — 
the Solid South to the contrary notwithstanding. 

Never, upon any subject, have I known people to agree 
as my southern correspondents did on this. The unan- 
imity of their dissent was an impressive thing. So was 
the violence some of them displayed. 

For a time, indeed, the heat with which they wrote, 
obscured the issue. That is to say, most of them instead 
of explaining merely denied, and added comments, more 
or less unflattering, concerning me. 

Wrote a lady from Lexington, Kentucky: 

I have lived in Kentucky all of my life, and have never yet 
heard "you-all" used in the singular, not even among the negroes. 
My grandparents and friends say they have never heard it, either. 

It was needless for you to tell your Virginia hostess that " you- 
all " (meaning you and your friend) were Yankees. The fact 
that you criticized her language proved it. Southern people 
pride themselves on their tact, and no doubt, at the time, she 
was struggling to conceal a smile because of some of your own 
localisms. 

Many of the letters were more severe than this one, 
and most of them made the point that I had been im- 
polite to my hostess, and that, in all probability, when 
she looked at me and asked, "Do you-all take sugah?" 
she was playing a joke upon me, apropos the discussion 

208 



"YOU-ALL" 

which had preceded the question. For example, this, 
from a gentleman of Pell City, Alabama : 

My wife is the residuary legatee of Virginia's language, in- 
herited, acquired and affected varieties, including the vanishing 
y; annihilated g; long-distance a, and irresistible drawl. 

To quell the unfortunate tumult that has arisen in our house- 
hold as a result of your last article in "Collier's" I am com- 
manded to advise you that the use of " you-all " in the singular 
is absodamnlutely non est factum in Virgina, save, perhaps, 
among the hill people of the Blue Ridge. 

Also, take notice that when your hostess, with apparent in- 
advertence, used the expression in connection with sugar in your 
demi-tasse, the subsequent blush was due to your failure to catch 
her witticism, ignorantly mistaking it for a lapse of hers. 

My wife was going to write to you herself, but I managed to 
divert this cruel determination by promising to uphold the honor 
of the Old Dominion. There is already too much blood being 
shed in the world without spilling that of non-combatants as 
would have been "you-all's" fate had she gone after you with a 
weapon more mighty than the sword when in the hands of Mr. 
Wilson or an outraged woman. 

In face of all this and much more, however, my con- 
viction was unshaken. I talked it over with my com- 
panion. He remembered the episode of the dinner table 
exactly as I did. Moreover, I still had my notes, made 
in the hotel that night. The lady looked at me. My 
companion was several places removed from her at the 
other side of the table. How could she have meant to 
include him? And how could she have expected me to 
say how he took his after-dinner coffee? 

At last, to reassure myself, I wrote to the wisest, clev- 

209 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

erest, most trustworthy lady in the South, and asked her 
what it all meant. 

"Well," she wrote back from Atlanta, "I will tell you, 
but I am not sure that you will understand me. The an- 
swer is : She did, but she did n't. She looked at and 
spoke to you and, of course, by all rules of logic she 
could not have been intending to make you Morg's 
keeper in the matter of coffee dressing. But she never 
would have said 'you-all' if Morg had not been in her 
mind as joined with you. The response, according to 
her thought-connotation, would have been from you and 
from him." 

This was disconcerting. So was a letter, received in 
the same mail, from a gentleman in Charleston: 

It is as plain as the nose on your face that you are not yet con- 
vinced that we in the South never use "you-all'' with reference 
to one person. The case you mentioned proves nothing at all. 
The very fact that there were Hvo strangers present justified the 
use of the expression ; we continually use the expression in that 
way, and in such cases we expect an answer from both persons 
so addressed. To illustrate : just a few days ago I "carried" 
two girls into an "ice-cream parlor." After we were seated, 
I looked at the one nearest me, and said : "Well, what will 
you-all have?" 

Physically we are so constructed that unless a person is cross- 
eyed it is impossible to look at two persons at once ; the mere fact 
that I looked at the one nearest me did not mean that I was not 
addressing both. I expected an answer from both, and I got it, 
too (as is generally the case where ice-cream is concerned).. 

The subject is one to which I have devoted the most careful 
attention for many years. I have been so interested in it that 
almost unconsciously, whenever I myself use the expression "you- 

2IO 



"YOU-ALL" 

all," or hear any one else use it, I note whether it is intended to 
refer to one or to more than one person. I have heard thou- 
sands of persons, white, black and indifferent, use the expression, 
and the only ones I have ever heard use it incorrectly are what 
we might call "professional Southerners." For instance, last 
week I went to a vaudeville show, and part of the performance 
was given by two "black-face" comedians, calling themselves 
"The Georgia Blossoms." Their dialect was excellent, with the 
single exception that one of them twice used the expression "you- 
all" where it could not possibly have meant more than one per- 
son. And I no sooner heard it than I said to myself : "There 
is one blossom that never bloomed in Georgia !" 

Another instance is the following: I was once approached by 
a beggar in Atlanta, who saluted me thus: "Say, mister, can't 
you-all give me a nickel?" Had I been accompanied it would 
have been all right, but I was alone, and there was no other per- 
son near me except the hobo. Did I give him the nickel? I 
should say not ! I said to myself : "He is a damned Yankee 
trying to pass himself off for a Southerner." 

Horrid glimmerings began to filter dimly through. 
And yet — 

Next day came a letter calHng my attention to an ar- 
ticle, written years ago by Joel Chandler Harris and 
Thomas Nelson Page, jointly, in which they plead with 
northern writers not to misuse the disputed expression 
by applying it in the singular. 

That was another shock. I felt conviction tottering 
. . . But she did look at me . . . She did n't expect an 
answer from my companion . . . 

And then behold! a missive from Mr. H. E. Jones, a 
member — and a worthy one — of the Tallapoosa County 
Board of Education, and a resident of Dadeville, Ala- 

211 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

bama. Mr. Jones' educational activities reach far be- 
yond Tallapoosa County, and far beyond the confines 
of his State, for he has educated me. He has made me 
see the light. 

"I want to straighten you out," he wrote, kindly. 
"We never use 'you-all' in the singular. Not even the 
most ignorant do so. But, as you know," (Ah, that was 
mercifully said!) "there are some peculiar, almost un- 
explainable, shades of meaning in local idioms of speech, 
which are not easy for a stranger to understand. I have 
a friend who was reared in Milwaukee and is a gradu- 
ate of the University of Wisconsin, who tells me he 
would have argued the 'you-all' point with all comers 
for some years following his taking up his residence 
here, but he is at this time as ready as I to deny the alle- 
gation and 'chaw the alligator.' 

"When your young lady, in Virginia, asked, *Do you- 
all take sugar ?' she mentally included Mr. Morgan, and 
perhaps all other Yankees. I would ask my local gro- 
cer, 'Will you-all sell me some sugar this morning?' 
meaning his establishment, collectively, although I ad- 
dressed him personally; but I would not ask my only 
servant, 'Have you-all milked the cow?' " 

And that is the exact truth. 

I was absolutely wrong. And though, having printed 
the ghastly falsehood in my original article, I can hardly 
hope now for absolution from the outraged South, I 
can at least retract, as I hereby do, and can, moreover, 
thank Mr. H. E. Jones, of Tallapoosa County, Alabama, 

213 



"YOU-ALL" 

tor having saved me from a double sin; for had he 
not given me the simple illustration of the grocery store, 
I might have repeated, now, my earlier misstatement. 



213 



CHAPTER XX 
IDIOMS AND ARISTOCRACY 

SOUTHERNERS have told me that they can tell 
from what part of the South a person comes, 
by his speech, just as an Easterner can dis- 
tinguish, by the same means a New Englander, a 
New Yorker, a Middle- Westerner, and a Brooklynite. 
I cannot pretend to have become an authority upon 
southern dialect, but it is obvious to me that the speech 
of New Orleans is unlike that of Charleston, and that of 
Charleston unlike that of Virginia. 

The chief characteristic of the Virginian dialect is the 
famous and fascinating localism which Professor C. Al- 
phonso Smith has called the "vanishing 31" — a y sound 
which causes words like "car" and "garden" to be pro- 
nounced "cyar" and "gyarden" — or, as Professor Smith 
prefers to indicate it: "C^ar" and "g^arden." I am 
told that in years gone by the "vanishing 3;" was com- 
mon to all Virginians, but though it is still common 
enough among members of the old generation, and is 
used also by some young people — particularly, I fancy, 
young ladies, who realize its fetching quality — there can 
be no doubt that it is, in both senses, vanishing, and that 
not half the Virginians of the present day pronounce 

214 



IDIOMS AND ARISTOCRACY 

''cigar" as "segyar," "carpet" as "cya'pet," and "Carter," 
as "Cyahtah." 

In Virginia and many other parts of the South one 
hears such words as "aunt" correctly pronounced with 
the broad a, and such words as "tube" and "new" prop- 
erly given the full u sound (instead of "toobe," and 
"noo," as in some parts of the North) ; but, on the other 
hand, while the South gives the short o sound in such 
words as "log" and "fog," it invariably calls a dog a 
"dawg." "Your" Is often pronounced "yore," "sure" 
as "shore," and, not infrequently, "to" as "toe." 

The South also uses the word "carry" in a way that 
strikes Northerners as strange. If a Southerner offers 
to "carry" you to the station, or over his plantation, he 
does not signify that he intends to transport you by 
means of physical strength, but that he will escort you. 
If he "carries you to the run" you will find that the 
"run" is what Northerners call a creek; if to the 
"branch," or "dreen," that is what we call a brook. 

This use of the word "carry," far from being a cor- 
ruption, is pure old English, and is used in the Bible, and 
by Smollett, though it is amusing to note that the "Geor- 
gia Gazetteer" for 1837, mentions as a lamentable pro- 
vincialism such an application of the word as "to carry 
(instead of lead) a horse to water." If the "Gazetteer" 
were indeed correct in this, then the Book of Genesis 
contains an American provincialism. 

The customary use of the word in the North, as "to 
carry a cane, or a bag," is equally but no more correct 

215 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

than the southern usage. I am informed by Mr. W. T. 
Hall, Editor of the Dothan (Alabama) "Eagle," that 
the word used in his part of the country, as signifying 
''to bear on the back, or shoulder," is "tote." "Tote" 
is a word not altogether unknown in the North, and it 
has recently found its way into some dictionaries, 
though the old "Georgia Gazetteer" disapproved of it. 
Even this word has some excuse for being, in that it is a 
deformed member of a good family, having come from 
the Latin, tollit, been transformed into the early English 
"tolt," and thus into what I believe to be a purely Ameri- 
can word. 

Other expressions which struck me as being charac- 
teristic of the South are "stop by," as for instance, "I 
will stop by for you," meaning, "I will call for you in 
passing"; "don't guess," as "I don't guess I'll come"; 
and "Yes indeedy !" which seems to be a kind of emphatic 
"Yes indeed." 

"As I look back over the old South," said one white- 
haired Virginian, "there were two things it was above. 
One was accounts and the other was grammar. Trades- 
men in prosperous neighborhoods were always in dis- 
tress because of the long credits, though gambling debts 
were, of course, always punctiliously paid. As to the 
English spoken in old Virginia — and indeed in the whole 
South — there is absolutely no doubt that its softness and 
its peculiarities in pronunciation are due to the influence 
of the negro voice and speech on the white race. Some 
of the young people seem to wish to dispute this, but we 

216 



IDIOMS AND ARISTOCRACY 

older ones used to take the view — half humorously, of 
course — that if a Southerner spoke perfect English, it 
showed he wasn't a gentleman; "that he hadn't been 
raised with niggers around him." 

"Oh, you should n't tell him that !" broke in a lady who 
was present. 

"Why not ?" demanded the old gentleman. 

"He '11 print it!" she said. 

"Well," he answered, "ain't it true? What's the 
harm it it?" 

"There!" she exclaimed. "You said 'ain't.' He'll 
print that Virginians say 'ain't' !" 

"Well," he answered, "I reckon we do, don't we?" 

She laughed and gave up. "I remember," she told me, 
"the very spot on the turnpike going out to Ripon, where 
I made up my mind to break myself of saying 'ain't.' 
But I want to tell you that we are talking much better 
English than we used to. Even the negroes are. You 
don't hear many white people saying 'gwine' for 'going' 
any more, for instance, and the young people don't say 
*set' for 'sit' and 'git' for 'get,' as their fathers did." 

"I 've heard folks say, though," put in the old gentle- 
man, "that they 'd ruther speak like a Virginian than 
speak correctly. The old talk was pretty nice, after all. 
I don't hold to all these new improvements. They 've 
been going too far in this Commonwealth." 

"What have they been doing?" I asked. 

"Doing!" he returned, "Why, they're gradually tak- 
ing the cuspidors out of the church pews !" 

217 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Before the question of dialect is dropped, it should be 
said that those who do not believe the soft southern 
pronunciation is derived from negroes, can make out 
an interesting case. If, they ask, the negro has cor- 
rupted the English of the South, why is it that he has 
not also corrupted the language of the West Indies — 
British and French? French negroes speak like French 
persons of white blood, and British West Indian negroes 
often speak the cockney dialect, without a trace of "nig- 
ger." Moreover, it is pointed out that in southern 
countries, the world over, there is a tendency to soften 
the harsh sounds of language, to elide, and drop out 
consonants. The Andalusians speak a Spanish com- 
parable in many of its peculiarities with the English of 
our own South, and the south-Italians exhibit similar 
dialectic traits. Nor do the parallels between the north 
and south of Spain and Italy, and of the United States, 
end there. The north-Italians and north-Spaniards are 
the ''Yankees" of their respective countries — the 
shrewd, cold business people — whereas the south- 
Italians and south-Spaniards are more poetic, more 
dashing, more temperamental. The merchants are of 
the north of Spain, but the dancers and bull-fighters are 
Andalusians. And just as our Americans of the North 
admire the lazy dialect of the South, so the north- 
Spaniards admire the dialect of Andalusia, and even 
imitate it because they think it has a fashionable sound 
— quite as British fashionables cultivate the habit of 
dropping final ^-'s, as in "huntin' " for ''hunting." 

218 



IDIOMS AND ARISTOCRACY 

Virginia, more than any other State I know of, feels 
its entity as a State. If you meet a Virginian travehng 
outside his State, and ask where he is from, he will not 
mention the name of the city in which he resides, but will 
reply: "I'm from Va'ginia." If, on the other hand, 
you are in Virginia, and ask him the same question, he 
will proudly reply: ''I'm from Fauquier," or ''I'm 
from Westmoreland," or whatever the name of his 
county may be. The chances are, also, that his trunks 
and traveling bags will be marked with his initials, fol- 
lowed not by the name of his town, but by the abbrevia- 
tion, "Va." 

I was told of one old unreconstructed Virginian who 
had to go to Boston on business. The gentleman he 
went to see there was exceedingly polite to him, asking 
him to his house, putting him up at his club, and showing 
him innumerable courtesies. The old Confederate, writ- 
ing to his wife, indicated his amazement : "Although 
he is not a Virginian," he declared, "I must confess that 
he lives like a gentleman." • 

The name of his Bostonian acquaintance was John 
Quincy Adams. 

I heard this story from a northern lady who has a 
country place near a small town in Virginia. In the 
North this lady's family is far from being unknown, but 
in Virginia, she assured me, all persons originating out- 
side the State are looked upon as vague beings without 
"family." 

"They seem to think," she said, "that Northerners 

219 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

have no parents — that they are made chemically." 

This does not imply, however, that well-bred North- 
erners are excluded from society. Even if they are well 
off they may get into society ; for though money does not 
count in one's favor in such a town, it does not count 
against one. The social requirement of the place is 
simple. If people are "nice people," that is enough. 

Of course, however, it is one thing to be admitted to 
Virginia society and another to belong to it by right. A 
case in point is that of a lady visiting in a Virginia city 
who, while calling at the house of some ''F. F. V's," was 
asked by a little girl, the daughter of the house, where she 
had been born. 

"Mawtha," said the little girl's mother, after the caller 
had departed, "you must not ask people where they were 
bo'n. If they were bo'n in Va'ginia they will tell you 
so without asking, and if they were n't bo'n in Va'ginia 
it 's very embarrassing." 

Some of the old families of the inner circle are in a 
tragic state of decay, owing to inbreeding; others, in a 
more wholesome physical and mental condition, are per- 
petually wrestling with the heritage of poverty left over 
from the War— "too proud to whitewash and too poor 
to paint" — clinging desperately to the old acres, and 
to the old houses which are like beautiful, tired ancestral 
ghosts. 

Until a few years ago the one resource of Virginian 
gentlewomen in need of funds was to take boarders, but 
more lately the daughters of distinguished but poverty- 

220 



IDIOMS AND ARISTOCRACY 

stricken families have found that they may work in of- 
fices. Thus, in the town of which I speak, several ladies 
who are very much "in society," support themselves by 
entertaining "paying guests," while others are stenog- 
raphers. The former, I was told, by the way, make it 
a practice to avoid first-hand business contacts with their 
guests by sending them their bills through the mail, and 
requiring that response be made by means of the same 
impersonal channel. 



221 



CHAPTER XXI 
THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL 

The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the centre of each and 
every town or city. 

— Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

RICHMOND is the Boston of Virginia ; Norfolk- 
its New York. The comparison does not, of 
course, hold in all particulars, Richmond being, 
for instance, larger than Norfolk, and not a seaport. 
Yet, on the other hand, Boston manages, more than any 
seaport that I know of, to conceal from the visitor the 
signs of its maritime life; wherefore Richmond looks 
about as much like a port as does the familiar part of 
Boston. 

The houses on the principal residence streets of Rich- 
mond are not built in such close ranks as Boston houses ; 
they have more elbow-room ; numbers of them have yards 
and gardens ; and there is not about Richmond houses the 
Bostonian insistence upon red brick; nevertheless many 
houses of both cities give off the same suggestion of hav- 
ing long been lived in by the descendants of their build- 
ers. So, too, though the Capitol at Richmond has little 
architectural resemblance to Boston's gold-domed State 
House — the former having been copied by Thomas 
Jefferson from the Maison Carree at Nimes, and being a 

222 



THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL 

better building than the Massachusetts State House, 
and better placed — the two do, nevertheless, suggest 
each other in their gray granite solidity. 

It is perhaps in the quality of solidity — architectural, 
commercial, social, even spiritual — that Richmond and 
Boston are most alike. Substantialness, conservatism, 
tradition, and prosperity rest like gray mantles over both. 

Broad Street in Richmond is two or three times as 
wide as Granby Street, Norfolk's chief shopping street, 
and for this reason, doubtless, its traffic seems less, 
though I believe it is in fact greater. A fine street 
to look upon at night, with its long, even rows of 
clustered boulevard lights, and its bright windows. 
Broad Street in the daytime is a disappointment, be- 
cause, for all its fine spaciousness, it lacks good build- 
ings. I must confess, too, that I was disappointed in the 
appearance of the women in the shopping crowds on 
Broad Street; for, as every one knows, Richmond has 
been famous for its beauties. In vain I looked for 
young women fitted to inherit the debutante mantles of 
such nationally celebrated beauties as Miss Irene Lang- 
horne (Mrs. Charles Dana Gibson), Miss May Handy 
(Mrs. James Brown Potter), Miss Lizzie Bridges (Mrs. 
Hobson), and Miss Sally Bruce (Mrs. Arthur B. Kin- 
solving). 

In the ten years between 1900 and 19 10 the popula- 
tion of Richmond increased 50 per cent. Her popula- 
tion by the last census was about 130,000, of which a 
third is colored. Norfolk's population is about 70,000, 

223 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

with approximately the same percentage of negroes. 
In both cities there is much new building — offices down- 
town, and pretty new brick homes in outlying suburban 
tracts. Likewise, in both, the charming signs of other 
days are here and there to be seen. 

Richmond is again like its ancient enemy, Boston, in 
the wealth of its historical associations, and I know of 
no city which gives the respectful heed to its own his- 
tory that Richmond does, and no State which in this 
matter equals the State of Virginia. If Richmond was 
the center of the South during the Civil War, Capitol 
Square was, as it is to-day, the center of that center. 
In this square, in the shadow of Jefferson's beautiful 
classic capitol building, which has the glowing gray tone 
of one of those water colors done on tinted paper by 
Jules Guerin, Confederate soldiers were mustered into 
service under Lee and Jackson. Within the old build- 
ing the Confederate Congress met, Aaron Burr was tried 
for treason, and George Washington saw, in its present 
position, his own statue by Lloudon. Across the way 
from the square, where the post office now stands, was 
the Treasury Building of the Confederate States, and 
there Jefferson Davis appeared seven times, to be tried 
for treason, only to have his case postponed by the Fed- 
eral Government, and finally dismissed. East of the 
square is the State Library, containing a remarkable col- 
lection of portraits and documents, including likenesses 
of all governors of Virginia from John Smith to Tyler, 
a portrait of Pocahontas, and the bail bond of Jefferson 

224 



THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL 

Davis, signed by Horace Greeley, Cornelius Vanderbilt. 
Gerrit Smith, and seventeen other distinguished men of 
the day. To the west of the square is old St. Paul's 
Church, with the pews of Lee and Davis. It was while 
attending service in this church, on Sunday, April 2, 
1865, that Davis received Lee's telegram from Peters- 
burg, saying that Richmond must be evacuated. A 
block or two west of the church, in East Franklin Street, 
is a former residence of. Lee. It was given by the late 
Mrs. Joseph Bryan and her sisters to the Virginia His- 
torical Society, and is now, appropriately enough, the 
home of that organization. 

In the old drawing room, now the office of the Histori- 
cal Society, I found Mr. William G. Stanard, the corre- 
sponding secretary, and from him heard something of 
Lee's life there immediately after the War. 

By the Northerners in Richmond at that time, includ- 
ing the Federal troops stationed in the city, Lee was of 
course respected and admired, while by the whole South 
he was, and is to-day, adored. As for his own ex- 
soldiers, they could not see him without emotion, and 
because of the demonstrations which invariably attended 
his appearance on the Richmond streets, he went out but 
little, passing much time upon the back porch of the 
house. Here most of the familiar Brady photographs 
of him were taken. Brady sent a young photographer 
to Richmond to get the photographs. Lee was at first 
disposed to refuse to be taken, but his family persuaded 
him to submit, on the ground that if there were any 

225 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

impertinence in the request it was not the fault of the 
young man, and that the latter might lose his position if 
he failed to obtain the desired pictures. 

Finding the continued attention of the crowds too 
much for him, the general left Richmond after two 
months, removing to a small house in Cumberland 
County, on the James, and it was there that he was resid- 
ing when called to the presidency of Washington College 
• — now Washington and Lee University — at Lexington, 
Virginia. As is well known, he accepted this offer, 
built up the institution, remained its president until the 
time of his death, and now lies buried in the university 
chapel. 

To Mr. Stanard I am also indebted for the following 
information regarding John Smith and Pocahontas : 

About a mile below Richmond, in what is now the 
brickyard region, there used to stand the residence of the 
Mayo family, a place known as Powhatan. This place 
has long been pointed out as the scene of the saving of 
Smith by the Indian girl, but late research indicates 
that, though Smith did come up the James to the present 
site of Richmond, his capture by the Indians did not 
occur here, but in the vicinity of Jamestown. Then In- 
dians took him first to one of their villages on York 
River, near the present site of West Point, Virginia, and 
thence to a place, on the same stream, in the county 
of Gloucester, where the tribal chief resided. I was 
under the impression that this worthy's name was Pow- 
hatan, but Mr. Stanard declared "powhatan" was not 

226 



THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL 

a proper name, but an Indian word meaning "chief." 
The Virginia Historical Society is satisfied that Smith 
was rescued by Pocahontas at a point about nine miles 
from Williamsburg on the west side of York River, but 
there are historians who contend that the whole story 
of the rescue is a fiction. One of these is Dr. Albert 
Bushnell Hart, of Harvard, who lists Smith among 
'Tlistorical Liars." Virginians, who regard Smith as 
one of their proudest historical possessions, are some- 
what disposed to resent this view, but it appears to me 
that there is at least some ground for it. Matthew Page 
Andrews, another historian, himself a Virginian, points 
out that many of our ideas of the Jamestown colony have 
been obtained from Smith's history of the settlement, 
which he wrote in England, some years after leaving 
Virginia. 

"From these accounts," says Mr. Andrews, "we get 
an unfavorable impression of Smith's associates in the 
colony and of the management of the men composing the 
popular or people's party in the London Company. As 
we now know that this party in the London Company 
was composed of very able and patriotic Englishmen, we 
are inclined to think that Captain Smith not only over- 
rated his achievement, but was very unjust to his fellow- 
colonists and the Company." 

The story of the rescue of Smith by Pocahontas, with 
the strong implication that the Indian girl was in love 
with him, comes to us from Smith himself. We know 
that when Pocahontas was nineteen years of age (seven 

227 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

years after the Smith rescue is said to have occurred), 
she married John Rolfe — the first Englishman to begin 
the cultivation of the tobacco plant. We know that she 
was taken to England, that she was welcomed at court 
as a princess, that she had a son born in England, and 
that she herself died there in 1617. We know also that 
her son, Thomas Rolfe, settled in Virginia, and that 
through him a number of Virginians trace descent from 
Pocahontas. (Mr. Andrews points out that in 191 5 one 
of these descendants became the wife of the President of 
the United States.) 

But we know also that John Smith, brave and daring 
though he was, was not above twisting and embroidering 
a tale to his own glorification. While, therefore, it is 
too much to afiirm that his rescue story is false, it is well 
to remember that Pocahontas was but twelve years old 
when the rescue is said to have occurred, and that Smith 
waited until after she had become famous, and had died, 
to promulgate his romantic story. 

Immediately to the north of Capitol Square stands the 
City Hall, an ugly building, in the cellar of which is the 
Police Court presided over by the celebrated and highly 
entertaining Judge Crutchfield, otherwise known as "One 
John" and "the Cadi" — of whom more presently. A 
few blocks beyond the City Hall, in the old mansion at 
the corner of East Clay and Twelfth Streets, which was 
the "White House of the Confederacy," the official resi- 
dence of Jeflferson Davis during the war, is the Conf eder- 

228 




\; . H t \^ 6 «->'"-•- 




Judge Crutchfield — a white-haired, hook-nosed man of more than seventy, peering 
over his eyeglasses with a look of shrewd, merciless divination 



THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL 

ate Museum — one of the most fascinating museums I 
ever visited. 

Not the least part of the charm of this museum is the 
fact that it is not of great size, and that one may conse- 
quently visit it without fatigue; but the chief fascina- 
tion of the place is the dramatic personalness of its ex- 
hibits. To me there is always something peculiarly en- 
gaging about intimate relics of historic figures, and it is 
of such relics that the greater part of the collection of the 
Confederate Museum consists. In one show case, for 
example, are the saddle and bridle of General Lee, and 
the uniform he wore when he surrendered. The effects 
of General Joseph E. Johnston are shown in another 
case, and in still another those of the picturesque J. E. B. 
Stuart, who, as here one may see, loved the little touch 
of individuality and dash which came of wearing a 
feather in a campaign hat. So also one learns some- 
thing of Stonewall Jackson when one sees in the cabinet, 
along with his old blue hat and other possessions, the 
gold spurs which were given to him by the ladies of 
Baltimore, beside the steel spurs that he zuore. All 
Jackson's personal effects were very simple. 

One of the most striking relics in the museum is the 
Great Seal of the Confederacy, which was only returned 
to Richmond within the last few years, after having been 
lost track of for nearly half a century — a strange chap- 
ter in the annals of the Civil War. 

Records in the Library of Congress, including the 
Confederate state papers purchased by the United States 

229 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Government in 1872, of William J. Bromwell, formerly 
a clerk in the Confederate State Department, brought to 
light, a few years ago, the fact that the seal was in the 
possession of Rear Admiral Thomas O. Self ridge, U. S. 
N., retired. 

At the time of the evacuation of Richmond, Bromwell 
carried off a number of the Confederate state papers, 
and Mrs. Bromwell took charge of the seal, transporting 
it through the lines in her bustle. When later, through 
Colonel John T. Pickett, Bromwell sold the papers to 
the Government, Rear Admiral Selfridge — then a cap- 
tain — was the officer assigned to go to Hamilton, On- 
tario, to inventory and receive them. It is said that 
Pickett gave the seal to Selfridge at about this time, 
first, however, having a duplicate made. This duplicate, 
or a copy of it, was later offered for sale as the 
original, but was found to be spurious. When examina- 
tion of the Pickett papers by Gaillard Hunt, of the Li- 
brary of Congress, finally traced the original seal to Rear 
Admiral Selfridge, an effort was made to buy it back. 
In 1 91 2 three Richmond gentlemen, Messrs. Eppa Hun- 
ton, Jr., William H. White and Thomas P. Bryan, pur- 
chased the Seal of the admiral for three thousand dol- 
lars, subject to proof of its authenticity. Mr. St. George 
Bryan and Mr. William Gray, of Richmond, then took 
the seal to London, where the makers are still well- 
known engravers. Here, by means of hall marks, the 
identification was made complete. 

No less appealing than the relics of the deceased gov- 

230 



THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL 

ernment and great generals who are gone, are some of 
the humbler items connected with the deaths of privates 
in the ranks of North and South alike. One of the most 
pathetic was a small daguerreotype of a beautiful young 
girl. On a card, beside the picture, is the story of it, 
so far as that story is ever likely to be known : 

Picture found on the dead body of an unidentified Federal 
soldier. 

Presented by C. C Calvert, Upperville, Va. 

"We have always hoped," said Miss Susan B. Har- 
rison, house regent of the museum, "that some day 
some one would come in and recognize this little pic- 
ture, and that it would find its way back to those who 
ought to have it, and who might by this means at last 
discover what became of the soldier who was dear to 
them." 

An even more tragic souvenir is a letter addressed to 
A. V. Montgomery, Camden, Madison County, Missis- 
sippi, in which a mortally wounded soldier of Confed- 
eracy bids a last good-by to his father. The letter was 
originally inclosed with one from Lieutenant Ethelbert 
Fairfax, C. S. A., informing the father that his son 
passed away soon after he had written. The text, 
pitiful and heroic as it is, can give but the faintest idea 
of the original, with its feeble, laborious writing, and the 
dark-brown spots dappling the three sheets of paper 
where blood from the boy's mangled shoulder dripped 
upon them while he wrote : 

231 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Spotsylvania County, Va. 
May lo, 1864. 
Dear Father: 

This is my last letter to you. I went into battle this evening 
as courier for Gen'l Heth. I have been struck by a piece of shell 
and my right shoulder is horribly mangled & I know death is 
inevitable. I am very weak but I write to you because I know 
you would be delighted to read a word from your dying son. I 
know death is near, that I will die far from home and friends 
of my early youth, but I have friends here, too, who are kind 
to me. My Friend Fairfax will write you at my request and 
give you the particulars of my death. My grave will be marked 
so that you may visit it if you desire to do so, but it is optionary 
with you whether you let my remains rest here or in Missis- 
sippi. I would like to rest in the graveyard with my dear 
mother and brothers, but it is a matter of minor importance. 
Let us all try to reunite in heaven. I pray my God to forgive 
my sins & I feel that his promises are true, that he will forgive 
me and save me. Give my love to all my friends. My strength 
fails me. My horse & my equipments will be left for you. 
Again a long farewell to you. May we meet in heaven. 

Your Dying Son, 

J. R. Montgomery. 



232 



CHAPTER XXII 
RANDOM RICHMOND NOTES 

RICHMOND may again be likened to Boston as 
a literary center. In an article published some 
years ago in "Book News" Alice M. Tyler re- 
fers to Colonel William Byrd, who founded Richmond 
in 1733, as the sprightliest and most genial native 
American writer before Franklin. In the time of Chief 
Justice Marshall, Richmond had a considerable group 
of novelists, historians and essayists, but the great 
literary name connected with the place is that of Edgar 
Allan Poe, who spent much of his boyhood in the city 
and later edited the "Southern Literary Messenger." 
Matthew Fontaine Maury, the great scientist, mentioned 
in an earlier chapter, was, at another time, editor of the 
same periodical, as was also John Reuben Thompson, 
"Poet of the Confederacy," who wrote, among other 
poems, "Music in Camp," and who translated Gustave 
Nadaud's familiar poem, "Carcassonne." 

Thomas Nelson Page made his home in Richmond for 
thirty years; Amelie Rives was born there and still 
maintains her residence in Albemarle County, Virginia, 
while among other writers of the present time connected 
with the city either by birth or long association are, 
Henry Sydnor Harrison, Mary Johnston, Ellen Glas- 

233 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

gow, Marion Harland, Kate Langley Bosher, James 
Branch Cabell, Edward Peple, dramatist, J. H. Whitty, 
biographer of Poe, and Colonel W. Gordon McCabe, sol- 
dier, historian, essayist, and local character — a gentle- 
man upon whose shoulders such imported expressions as 
litterateur, hon viveur, and raconteur alight as naturally 
as doves on friendly shoulders. 

Colonel McCabe is a link between present-day Rich- 
mond and the traditions and associations of England. 
He was the friend of Lord Roberts, he introduced Lord 
Tennyson to Bull Durham tobacco, and, as is fitting 
under the circumstances, he speaks and writes of a hotel 
as "an hotel." 

Henry Sydnor Harrison did his first writing as book 
reviewer on the Richmond ''Times-Dispatch," of which 
paper he later became paragrapher and daily poet, and 
still later editor in chief. It is commonly reported in 
Richmond that the characters In his novel "Queed," the 
scenes of which are laid in Richmond, were ''drawn 
from life." I asked Mr. Harrison about this. 

"When the book appeared," he said, "I was much em- 
barrassed by the disposition of Richmond people — human 
and natural, I suppose, when you 'know the author' — to 
identify all the imaginary persons with various local 
characters. Some characteristics of the political boss in 
my story were in a degree suggested by a local celebrity ; 
Stewart Bryan is indicated, in passing, as Stewart 
Byrd; and the bare bones of a historic case, altered at 
will, were employed in another connection. But I think 

234 



RANDOM RICHMOND NOTES 

I am stating the literal truth when 1 say that no figure 
in the book is borrowed from life," 

The recent residential development in Richmond has 
been to the west of the city in the neighborhood of Monu- 
ment Avenue, a fine double drive, with a parked center, 
lined with substantial new homes, and having at inter- 
vals monuments to southern heroes: Lee, Davis, and 
J. E. B. Stuart. 

The parks are on the outskirts of the city and, as in 
most other cities, it is in these outlying regions that new 
homes are springing up, thanks in no small degree to the 
automobile. The Country Club of Virginia is out to 
the west of the town, in what is known as Westhamp- 
ton, and is one of the most charming clubs of its kind 
in the South or, indeed, in the country. 

Richmond has one of the most beautiful and several 
of the most curious cemeteries I have ever seen. Holly- 
wood Cemetery stands upon rolling bluffs overlooking 
the James, and under its majestic trees are the tombs of 
many famous men, including James Monroe, John Tyler, 
Jefferson Davis and Fitzhugh Lee. An inscription on 
the Davis monument, which was erected by the widow 
and daughter of the President of the Confederacy, de- 
scribes him as ''an American soldier and defender of the 
Constitution." At the back of the pedestal is another 
inscription : 

President of the Confederate 
States of America 1861-1865. 

235 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Faithful to All Trusts, a Mar- 
tyr TO Principle. 
He Lived and Died the Most 
Consistent of American Sol- 
diers AND Statesmen. 

It occasionally happens that, instead of having monu- 
ments because in life they were famous, men are made 
famous after death by the inscriptions placed upon their 
tombstones. Such is the case with James E. Valentine, 
a locomotive engineer killed in a collision many years 
ago. The Valentine monument in Hollywood Cemetery 
is almost as well known as the monuments erected in 
memory of the great, the reason for this being embodied 
in the following verse adorning the stone: 

Until the brakes are turned on Time, 
Life's throttle valve shut down. 
He wakes to pilot in the crew 
That wear the martyr's crown. 

On schedule time on upper grade 
Along the homeward section, 
He lands his train at God's roundhouse 
The morn of resurrection. 

His time all full, no wages docked ; 
His name on God's pay roll. 
And transportation through to Heaven, 
A free pass for his soul. 

In the burial ground of old St. John's Church — the 
building in which Patrick Henry delivered his "Give me 

236 




p 



RANDOM RICHMOND NOTES 

Liberty or give me Death" oration — are a number of old 
gravestones bearing strange inscriptions which appeal 
to the imagination, and also, alas! elicit sad thoughts 
concerning those who wrote the old-time gravestone 
doggerel. 

The custodian of the church is glad to indicate the in- 
teresting stones, but is much more taken up with his own 
gift of oratory, as displayed when, on getting visitors 
inside the church, he takes his place on the spot where 
Patrick Henry stood, and delivers the famous oration. 
Having done this to us — or perhaps it would seem more 
generous to say for us — the caretaker told us that many 
persons who had heard him had declared that Patrick 
Henry himself would have had a hard time doing it 
better. But when he threatened, for contrast, to de- 
liver the oration as a less gifted elocutionist might speak 
it, my companion, in whom I had already observed signs 
of restlessness, interrupted with the statement that we 
were late for an engagement, and fled from the place, 
followed by me. 

In certain parts of the city, often at a considerable 
distance from the warehouse and factory sections, one 
may occasionally catch upon the breeze the faint, spicy 
fragrance of tobacco; and should one trace these pleas- 
ant scents to their sources, one would come to a region 
of factories in which rich brown leaves are transformed 
into pipe tobacco, plug tobacco, or cigarettes. In the 
simpler processes of this work, negro men and women 

237 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

are employed, and these with their natural picturesque- 
ness of pose and costume, and their singing, in the set- 
ting of an old shadowy loft, make a tobacco factory a 
fascinating place. In one loft you will see negro men 
and boys handling the tobacco leaves with pitchforks, 
much as farm hands handle hay; in another, negro 
women squatting upon boxes, stemming the leaves, or 
"pulling up ends," their black faces blending mys- 
teriously with the dark shadows of beams and rafters. 
Here the air is laden not only with the sweet tobacco 
smell, mixed with a faint scent of licorice and of fruit, 
but is freighted also with a fine brown dust which is 
revealed where bars of sunlight strike in through the 
window^s, and w-hich seems, as it shifts and sparkles, to 
be a visible expression of the smell. 

In the busy season "street niggers" are generally used 
for stemming, which is, perhaps, the leading part of the 
tobacco industry in Richmond, and these "street nig- 
gers," a wild yet childlike lot, who lead a hand-to-mouth 
existence all year round, bring to the tobacco trade a 
w^ealth of semi-barbaric color. To give us an idea of the 
character of a Richmond "street nigger" the gentleman 
who took my companion and me through the factory told 
us of having wanted a piece of light work done, and 
having asked one of these negroes: "Want to earn a 
quarter?" 

To which the latter replied without moving from his 
comfortable place beside a sun-baked brick wall: "No, 
boss, Ah got a quahtah." 

238 



RANDOM RICHMOND NOTES 

The singing of the negroes is a great feature of the 
stemming department in a tobacco factory. Some of 
the singers become locally famous; also, I was told by 
the superintendent, they become independent, and for 
that reason have frequently to be dismissed. The won- 
derful part of this singing, aside from the fascinating 
harmonies made by the sweet, untrained negro voices, 
is the utter lack of prearrangement that there is about 
it. Now there will be silence in the loft ; then there will 
come a strange, half-savage cry from some dark corner, 
musical, yet seemingly meaningless; soon a faint 
humming will begin, and will be taken up by men and 
women all over the loft; the humming will swell into a 
chant to which the workers rock as their black hands 
travel swiftly among the brown leaves ; then, presently, 
it will die away, and there will be silence until they 
are again moved to song. 

From shadowy room to shadowy room, past great 
dark bins filled with the leaves, past big black steaming 
vats, oozing sweet-smelling substances, past moist fra- 
grant barrels, always among the almost spectral forms 
of negroes, treading out leaves with bare feet, working 
over great wicker baskets stained to tobacco color, piling 
up wooden frames, or operating the powerful hydraulic 
presses which convert the soft tobacco into plugs of con- 
crete hardness — so one goes on through the factory. 
The browns and blacks of these interiors are the browns 
and blacks of etchings; the color of the leaves, the old 
dark timbers, the black faces and hands, and the ragged 

239 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

clothing, combined with the humming of negro voices, 
the tobacco fragrance, and the golden dust upon the 
air, make an indescribably complete harmony of shade, 
sound, and scent. 

The department in which the pipe tobacco is packed 
in tins is a very different sort of place; here white labor 
is employed: a great many girls seated side by side at 
benches working with great digital dexterity: measur- 
ing out the tobacco, folding wax paper cartons, filling 
them, and slipping them into the narrow tins, all at a 
rate of speed so great as to defy the sight, giving a sense 
of fingers flickering above the bench with a strange, 
almost supernatural sureness, like the fingers of a 
magician who makes things disappear before your eyes ; 
or like the pictures in which post-impressionist and 
cubist painters attempt to express motion. 

"May I speak to one of them?" I asked the superin- 
tendent. 

"Sure," said he. 

I went up to a young woman who was working, if 
anything, more rapidly than the other girls at the same 
bench. 

"Can you think, while you are doing this?" I asked. 

"Yes," she replied, without looking up, while her 
fingers flashed on ceaselessly. 

"About other things?" 

"Certainly." 

"How many cans do you fill in a day?" 

240 



RANDOM RICHMOND NOTES 

"About thirty-four to thirty-five hundred on the aver- 
age." 

''May I ask your name?" She gave it. 

I took up one of the small identification slips which 
she put into each package, and wrote her name upon the 
back of it. The number on the slip — for the purpose of 
identifying the girl who packed the tin — was 220. Let 
the reader, therefore, be informed that if he smokes 
Edgeworth Ready Rubbed, and finds in a tin a slip 
bearing that number, he has been served by no less a 
person than Miss Katie Wise, of the astonishingly speedy 
fingers. 



241 



M 



CHAPTER XXIII 
JEDGE CRUTCHFIELD'S COT 

Dar 's a pow'ful rassle 'twix de Good en de Bad, 

En de Bad 's got de ail-under holt ; 
En w'en de wuss come, she come i'on-clad. 

En you hatter holt yo' bref fer de jolt. 

— Uncle Remus. 

Y companion and I had not traveled far into 
the South before we discovered that our com- 
fort was hkely to be considerably enhanced if, 
in hotels, we singled out an intelligent bell boy and, as _ 
far as possible, let this one boy serve us. Our mainstay 
in the Jefferson Hotel was Charles Jackson, No. 144, 
or, when Charles was "off," his "side partner," whom 
we knew as Bob. 

Having one day noticed a negro in convict's stripes, 
but without a guard, raking up leaves in Capitol Square, 
I asked Charles about the matter. 

"Do they let the convicts go around unguarded?" I 
inquired. 

"They 's some of 'em can," said he. "Those is 
trustees." 

This talk of "trustees" led to other things and finally 
to a strong recommendation, by Charles, of the Rich- 
mond Police Court, as a place of entertainment. 

242 



JEDGE CRUTCHFIELD'S COT 

"Is it interesting?" I asked. 

" Inter -restingt Yes, suh! Judge Crutchfield he 
suttinly is. He done chahge me twenty-six dollahs and 
fo'ty cents. My brothah, he got in fight down street, 
heah. Some niggers set on him. I went to he'p him 
an' p'leeceman got me. He say I was resistin' p'leece. 
I ain't resisted no p'leece! No, suh! Not me! But 
Judge Crutchfield, you can't tell him nothin'. 'Tain't 
no use to have a lawyer, nuther. Judge Crutchfield 
don't want no lawyers in his co't. Like 's not he cha'ge 
you mo' fo' havin' lawyer. Then you got pay lawyer, 
too. 

''Friend mine name Billy. One night Billy he wake 
up and heah some one come pushin' in his house. He 
hollah: 'Who thar?' 

"Othah nigger he kep' pushin' on in. He say : 'This 
Gawge.' 

"Billy, he say: 'Git on out heah, niggah! Ain't no 
Gawge live heah!' 

"Othah niggah, he say: 'Don't make no dift'unce 
Gawge live heah o' not. He sure comin' right in! 
Ain't nobody heah kin stop ol' Gawge! He eat 'em 
alive, Gawge do! He de boss of Jackson Ward. Bet- 
tah say yo' prayehs, niggah, fo' yo' time — has — come!' 

"Billy he don't want hit nobody, but this-heah Gawge, 
he drunk, an' Billy have t' hit 'im. W^ell, suh, what you 
think this Gawge done? He go have Billy 'rested. 
Yes, suh! But you can't tell Judge Crutchfield nothin'. 
Next mo'nin' in p'leece co't he say to Billy: T fine you 

243 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

twenty-five dollahs, fo' hittin' this old gray-haihed man.' 
Yes, suh! 'at 's a way Judge Crutchfield is. Can't tell 
him nothin'. He jes' set up theh on de bench, an' he 
chaw tobacco, an' he heah de cases, an' he spit, an' evvy 
time he spit he spit a fine. Yes, suh! He spit like dis: 
Tfst! Five dollahs !'—Tf St ! Ten dollahs !'—Tfst ! 
Fifteen dollahs!' — just how he feel. He suttinly is 
some judge, 'at man." 

Encouraged by this account of police court justice as 
meted out to the Richmond negro, my companion and I 
did visit Justice Crutchfield's court. 

The room in the basement of the City Hall was 
crowded. All the benches were occupied and many per- 
sons, white and black, were standing up. Among the 
members of the audience — for the performance is more 
like a vaudeville show with the judge as headliner than 
like a serious tribunal — I noticed several actors and act- 
resses from a company which was playing in Richmond 
at the time — these doubtless drawn to the place by the 
fact that Walter C. Kelly, billed in vaudeville as "The 
Virginia Judge," is commonly reported to have taken 
Judge Crutchfield as a model for his exceedingly amus- 
ing monologue. Mr. Kelly himself has, however, told 
me that his inspiration came from hearing the late Judge 
J. D. G. Brown, of Newport News, hold court. 

At the back of the room, in what appeared to be a sort 
of steel cage, were assembled the prisoners, all of them, 
on this occasion, negroes ; while at the head of the cham- 
ber behind the usual police-court bulwark, sat the judge 

244 



JEDGE CRUTCHFIELD'S COT 

— a white-haired, hook-nosed man of more than seventy, 
peering over the top of his eyeglasses with a look of 
shrewd, merciless divination. 

"William Taylor !" calls a court officer. 

A negro is brought from the cage to the bar of 
justice. He is a sad spectacle, his face adorned with 
a long strip of surgeon's plaster. The judge looks at 
him over his glasses. The hearing proceeds as follows : 

Court Officer (to prisoner) — Get over there! 
(Prisoner obeys.) 

Judge Crutch field — Sunday drunk — Five dollars. 

It is over. 

The next prisoner is already on his way to the bar. 
He is a short, wide negro, very black and tattered. A 
large black negress, evidently his consort, arises as wit- 
ness against him. ' The case goes as follows : 

Judge Crutchfield — Drunk? 

The Wife (looking contemptuously at her spouse) — 
Drunk? Yass, Jedge, drunk. Always drunk." 

The Prisoner (meekly) — I ain't been drunk, Jedge. 

The Judge — Yes, you have. I can see you 've got 
your sign up this morning. (Looking toward cage at 
back of room) : Make them niggers stop talkin' back 
there! (To the wife) : What did he do, Mandy? 

The Wife (angrily) — Jedge, he come bustin' in, and 
he come so fast he untook the do' off 'n de hinges ; den 'e 
begins — " 

The Judge (to the prisoner, sarcastically) — You 
was n't drunk, eh ? 

245 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

The Prisoner (weakly) — I might of had a drink oh 
two. 

The Judge (severely) — ^Was — you — drunk f 

The Prisoner — No, suh, Jedge. Ah was n't drunk. 
Ah don't think no man 's drunk s' long 's he can navi- 
gate, Jedge. I don't — 

The Judge — Oh, yes, he can be ! He can navigate 
and navigate mighty mean ! — Ten dollars. 

(At this point an officer speaks in a low tone to the 
judge, evidently interceding for the prisoner.) 

The Judge (loudly) — No. That fine 's very small. 
If it ain't worth ten dollars to get drunk, it ain't worth 
nothing at all. Next case ! 

(While the next prisoner is being brought up, the 
judge entertains his audience with one of the humorous 
monologues for which he is famous, afid which, together 
with the summary ''justice" he metes out, keeps ripples 
of laughter running through the room) : I 'm going to 
get drunk myself, some day, and see what it does to me. 
[Laughter.] Mebbe I '11 take a little cocaine, too. 

A Negro Voice (from back of room, deep bass, and 
very fervent) — Oh, no-o-o! Don't do dat, Jedge! 
[More laughter.] 

The Judge — Where's that prisoner? If he was a 
Baptist, he would n't be so slow. 

(The prisoner, a yellow negro, is brought to the bar. 
His trousers are mended with a large safety pin and his 
other equipment is to match.) 

The Judge (inspecting the prisoner sharply) — You 

246 



JEDGE CRUTCHFIELD'S CO'T 

ain't a Richmond nigger. I can tell that to look at you. 

The Prisoner — No, suh, Jedge. That 's right. 

The Judge — Where you from ? You 're from No'th 
Ca'lina, ain't you? 

The Prisoner — Yas, suh, Jedge. 

The Judge — Six months ! 

(A great laugh rises from the courtroom at this. On 
inquiry we learn that the "joke" depends upon the 
judge's well-known aversion for negroes from North 
Carolina.) 

Only recently I have heard Walter C. Kelly as "The 
Virginia Judge." Save for a certain gentle side which 
Mr. Kelly indicates, and of which I saw no signs in 
Judge Crutchfield, I should say that, even though Judge 
Crutchfield is not his model, the suggestion of him is 
strongly there. Two of Mr. Kelly's "cases" are par- 
ticularly reminiscent of the Richmond Police Court. 
One is as follows: 

The Judge — First case — Sadie Anderson. 

The Prisoner— Yassir ! That 's me ! 

The Judge — Thirty days in jail. That's me! 
Next case. 

The other : 

The Judge — What 's your name ? 

The Prisoner — Sam Williams. 

The Judge — How old are you, Sam ? 

The Prisoner — Just twenty-four. 

The Judge — You '11 be just twenty-five when you get 
out. Next case ! 

247 



CHAPTER XXIV 
NORFOLK AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD 

JUST as New York looks newer than Boston, but 
is actually older, Norfolk looks newer than Rich- 
mond. Business and population grow in Rich- 
mond, but you do not feel them growing as you do in 
Norfolk. You feel that Richmond business men already 
have money, whereas in Norfolk there is less old wealth 
and a great deal more scrambling for new dollars. Also 
you feel that law and order count for more in Richmond 
than in Norfolk, and that the strict prohibition law which 
not long ago became effective in Virginia will be more 
easily enforced in the capital than in the seaport. Nor- 
folk, in short, likes the things New York likes. It likes 
tall office buildings, and it dotes on the signs of com- 
mercial activity by day and social activity by night. 
Furthermore, from the tops of some of the high build- 
ings the place actually looks like a miniature New York : 
the Elizabeth River masquerading as the East River; 
Portsmouth, with its navy yard, pretending to be Brook- 
lyn, while some old-time New York ferryboats, running 
between the two cities, assist in completing the illusion. 
In the neighboring city of Newport News, Norfolk has 
its equivalent for Jersey City and Hoboken, while Will- 

248 



NORFOLK AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD 

oiighby Spit protrudes into Hampton Roads like Sandy 
Hook reduced to miniature. 

The principal shopping streets of Norfolk and Rich- 
mond are as unlike as possible. Broad Street, Rich- 
mond, is very wide, and is never overcrowded, whereas 
Granby Street, Norfolk (advertised by local enthusiasts 
as "the livest street in Virginia," and appropriately 
spanned, at close intervals, by arches of incandescent 
lights), is none too wide for the traffic it carries, with 
the result that, during the afternoon and evening, it is 
truly very much alive. To look upon it at the crowded 
hours is to get a suggestion of a much larger city than 
Norfolk actually is — a suggestion which is in part ac- 
counted for by the fact that Norfolk's spending popula- 
tion, drawn from surrounding towns and cities, is much 
greater than the number of its inhabitants. 

Norfolk's extraordinary growth in the last two or 
three decades may be traced to several causes: to the 
fertility of the soil of the surrounding region, which, 
intensively cultivated, produces rich market-garden 
crops, making Norfolk a great shipping point for 
"truck"; to the development of the trade in peanuts, 
which are grown in large quantities in this corner of 
Virginia; to a great trade in oysters and other sea-food, 
and to the continually increasing importance of the 
Norfolk navy yard. 

In connection with the navy Norfolk has always 
figured prominently, Hampton Roads having been a 
favorite naval rendezvous since the early days of the 

249 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

American fleet. Now, however, it is announced that 
the cry of our navy for a real naval base — something we 
have never had, though all other important navies have 
them, Britain alone having three — has been heard in 
Washington, and that Norfolk has been selected as the 
site for a base. This is an important event not only for 
the Virginia seaport, but for the United States. 

Farmers who think they are in a poor business will do 
well to investigate Norfolk's recent history. The 
"trucking" industry of Norfolk is said to amount in the 
aggregate to twelve or fourteen million dollars annually, 
and many fortunes have been made from it. The 
pioneer "trucker" of the region was Mr. Richard Cox. 
A good many years ago Mr. Cox employed a German 
boy, a blacksmith by trade, named Henry Kern. Kern 
finally branched out for himself. When, in 191 5, he 
died, his real estate holdings in Norfolk and Portsmouth 
were valued at two million dollars, all of which had been 
made from garden truck. He was but one of a consid- 
erable class of wealthy men whose fortunes have sprung 
from the same source. 

Many of the truck farms have access to the water. 
The farmers bring their produce to the city in their own 
boats, giving the port a picturesque note. At Norfolk it 
is transferred to steamers which carry it to New York, 
Philadelphia, Boston, Providence, Baltimore and Wash- 
ington. Lately a considerable amount of truck has 
been shipped west by rail, as well. 

Hundreds of acres of ground in the vicinity of the 

250 



NORFOLK AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD 

city are under glass and large crops of winter vegetables 
are raised. Kale and spinach are being grown and har- 
vested throughout the cold months; strawberries, pota- 
toes, beans, peas, cucumbers, cabbage, lettuce and other 
vegetables follow through the spring and summer, run- 
ning on into the fall, when the corn crop becomes impor- 
tant. Corn is raised chiefly by the peanut farmer, 
whose peanuts grow between his corn-rows. 

While the banks are "carrying" the peanut farmers, 
pending their fall harvest, the activities of the "truck- 
ers" are at their height, so that the money loaned to one 
class of agriculturist is replaced by the deposits of the 
other class ; and by the same token, of course, the peanut 
farmers are depositing money in the banks when the 
"truckers" want to borrow. This situation, one judges, 
is not found objectionable by Norfolk and Portsmouth 
bankers, and I have been told that, as a corollary, these 
banks have never been forced, even in times of dire 
panic, to issue clearing house certificates, but have al- 
ways paid cash. 

Norfolk has grown so fast and has so rapidly replaced 
the old with the new, that the visitor must keep his eyes 
open if he would not miss entirely such lovely souvenirs 
of an earlier and easier life, as still remain. Who would 
imagine, seeing it to-day, that busy Granby Street had 
ever been a street of fine residences? Yet a very few 
years have passed since the old Newton, Tazwell, Dick- 
son and Taylor residences surrendered to advancing 
commerce and gave place to stores and office buildings — 

251 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

the two last mentioned having been replaced by the Dick- 
son Building and the Taylor Building, erected less than 
fifteen years ago. 

Freemason Street is the highway which, more 
than any other, tells of olden times. For though the 
downtown end of this lovely old thoroughfare has lapsed 
into decay, many beautiful mansions, dating from long 
ago, are to be seen a few blocks out from the busier 
portion of the city. Among these should be mentioned 
the Whittle house, the H. N. Castle house, and particu- 
larly the exquisite ivy-covered residence of Mr. Barton 
Myers, at the corner of Bank Street. The city of Nor- 
folk ought, I think, to attempt to acquire this house and 
preserve it (using it perhaps as a memorial museum to 
contain historical relics) to show what has been, in Nor- 
folk, as against what is, and to preach a silent sermon on 
the high estate of beauty from which a fine old city may 
fall, in the name of progress and commercial growth. 

To the credit of Norfolk be it said that old St. Paul's 
Church, with its picturesque churchyard and tombs, is 
excellently cared for and properly valued as a pre- 
Revolutionary relic. The church was built in 1730, and 
was struck by a British cannon-ball when Lord Dunmore 
bombarded the place in 1776. Baedeker tells me, how- 
ever, that the cannon-ball now resting in the indenta- 
tion in the wall of the church is "not the original." 

When I say that St. Paul's is properly valued I mean 
that many citizens told my companion and me to be sure 
to visit it. I observe, however — and I take it as a sign 

252 




>* 



:? 



^ 



^ 



NORFOLK AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD 

of the times in Norfolk — that an extensive, well-printed 
and much illustrated book on Norfolk, issued by the 
Chamber of Commerce, contains pictures of banks, 
docks, breweries, mills, office buildings, truck farms, pea- 
nut farms, battleships, clubhouses, hotels, hospitals, fac- 
tories, and innumerable new residences, but no picture 
of the church, or of the lovely old homes of Freemason 
Street. Nor do I find in the booklet any mention of the 
history of the city or the surrounding region — although 
that region includes places of the greatest beauty and 
interest : among them the glorious old manor houses of 
the James River; the ancient and charming town of 
Williamsburg, second capital of the Virginia colony, and 
seat of William and Mary College, the oldest college in 
the United States excepting Harvard; Yorktown, 
"Waterloo of the Revolution"; many important battle- 
fields of the Civil War; Hampton Institute, the famous 
negro industrial school at Hampton, nearby; the lovely 
stretch of water on which the Monitor met the Merri- 
mac ^ ; the site of the first English settlement in America 

1 The Merrimac, originally a Federal vessel of wooden construction 
was sunk by the Union forces when they abandoned Norfolk. A Con- 
federate captain, John M. Brooke, raised her, equipped her with a ram, 
and covered her with boiler plate and railroad rails. She is called the 
first ironclad. While she was being reconstructed John Ericsson was 
building his Monitor in New York. The turret was first used on this 
vessel. It is worth noting that at the time of the engagement between 
these two ships the Monitor was not the property of the Federal Govern- 
ment, but belonged to C. S. Bushnell, of New Haven, who built her at 
his own expense, in spite of the opposition of the Navy Department of 
that day. The Government paid for her long after the fight. It should also 
be noted that the Merrimac did not fight under that name, but as a Con- 
federate ship had been rechristened Virginia. The patriotic action of Mr. 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

at Jamestown, and, for mystery and desolation, the 
Dismal Swamp with Lake Drummond at its heart. But 
then, I suppose it is natural that the Chamber of Com- 
merce mind should thrust aside such things in favor of 
the mighty "goober," which is a thing of to-day, a thing 
for which Norfolk is said to be the greatest of all mar- 
kets. For is not history dead, and is not the man who 
made a fortune out of a device for shelling peanuts with- 
out causing the nuts to drop in two, still living? 

And yet the modernness on which Norfolk so evidently 
prides herself is not something to be lightly valued. 
Fine schools, fine churches and miles of pleasant, recently 
built homes are things for any American city to rejoice 
in. Therefore Norfolk rejoices in Ghent, her chief 
modern residence district, which is penetrated by arms 
of the Elizabeth River, so that many of the houses in 
this part of the city look out upon pretty lagoons, dotted 
over with all manner of pleasure craft. Less than 
twenty years ago, the whole of what is now Ghent was a 
farm, and there are other suburban settlements, such as 
Edgewater, Larchmont, Winona and Lochhaven, out in 
the direction of Hampton Roads, which have grown up 
in the last six or eight years. The Country Club of 
Norfolk, with a very pleasing club-house on the water, 
and an eighteen-hole golf course, is at Lochhaven, and 
the new naval base is, I believe, to be located somewhat 

Bushnell is recalled by the fact that, only recently, Mr. Godfrey L. Cabot, 
of Boston, has agreed to furnish funds to build the torpedoplane designed 
by Admiral Fiske as a weapon wherewith to attack the German fleet 
within its defenses at Kiel, 

254 



NORFOLK AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD 

farther out, on the site of the Jamestown Exposition. 

Norfolk is well provided with nearby seaside recrea- 
tion places, of which probably the most attractive is 
Virginia Beach, facing the ocean. Ocean View, so 
called, is on Chesapeake Bay, and there are summer cot- 
tage colonies at Willoughby Spit and Cape Henry. On 
the bay side of Cape Henry is Lynnhaven Inlet connect- 
ing Lynnhaven Bay and River with Chesapeake Bay. 
From Lynnhaven Bay come the famous oysters of that 
name, now to be had in most of the large cities of the 
East, but which seemed to me to taste a little better at 
the Virginia Club, in Norfolk, than oysters ever tasted 
anywhere. Perhaps that was because they w^ere real 
Lynnhavens, just as the Virginia Club's Smithfield ham 
is real Smithfield ham from the little town of Smith- 
field, Virginia, a few miles distant. On the bank of the 
Lynnhaven River is situated the Old Donation farm with 
a ruined church, and an ancient dwelling house which 
w^as used as the first courthouse in Princess Anne 
County; and not far distant from this place is Witch 
Duck Point, where Grace Sherwood, after having been 
three times tried, and finally convicted as a witch, was 
thrown into the river. 

The several waterside places I have mentioned are 
more or less local in character, but there is nothing local 
about Fortress Monroe, on Old Point Comfort, just 
across Hampton Roads, which has for many years been 
one of the most beautiful and highly individualized idling 
places on the Atlantic Coast. 

255 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

The old moated fortress, the interior of which is more 
Hke some lovely garden of the last century than a military 
post, remains an important coast artillery station, and is 
a no less lovely spot now than when our grandparents 
went there on their wedding journeys, stopping at the 
old Hygiea Hotel, long since gone the way of old hotels. 

The huge Chamberlin Hotel, however, remains appar- 
ently unchanged, and is to-day as spacious, comfortable 
and homelike as when our fathers and mothers, or 
perhaps we ourselves, stopped there years ago. The 
Chamberlin, indeed, seems to have the gift of perennial 
youth. I remember a ball which was given there in 
honor of Admiral Sampson and the officers of his fleet, 
after the Spanish War. The ballroom was so full of 
naval and military uniforms that I, in my somber civilian 
clothing, felt wan and lonely. Most of the evening I 
passed in modest retirement, looking out upon the bril- 
liant scene from behind a potted palm. And yet, when 
my companion and I, now in our dotage, recently visited 
the Chamberlin, there stood the same potted palm in the 
same place. Or if it was not the same, it was one 
exactly like it. 

The Chamberlin is of course a great headquarters for 
army and navy people, and we observed, moreover, that 
honeymooning couples continue to infest it — for For- 
tress Monroe has long ranked with Washington and 
Niagara Falls as a scene to be visited upon the wedding 
journey. 

There they all were, as of old: the young husband 

256 



I 



NORFOLK AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD 

scowling behind his newspaper and pretending to read 
and not to be thinking of his pretty Httle wife across the 
breakfast table; the fat blonde bride being continually 
photographed by her adoring mate — now leaning against 
a pile on the pier, now seated on a wall, with her feet 
crossed, now standing under a live-oak within the for- 
tress; also there was the inevitable young pair who 
simply could n't keep their hands off from each other ; we 
came upon them constantly — in the sun-parlor, where 
she would be seated on the arm of his chair, running her 
hand through his hair; wandering in the eventide 
along the shore, with arms about each other, or going in 
to meals, she leading him down the long corridor by his 
''ickle finger". 

I recall that it was as we were going back to Norfolk 
from Old Point Comfort, having dinner on a most excel- 
lent large steamer, running to Norfolk and Cape Charles, 
that my companion remarked to me, out of a clear sky, 
that he had made up his mind, once for all, that, come 
what might, he would never, never, never get married. 
No, never ! 



257 



CHAPTER XXV 
COLONEL TAYLOR AND GENERAL LEE 

Forth from its scabbard all in vain 

Bright flashed the sword of Lee; 
'T is shrouded now in its sheath again, 
It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain, 
Defeated, yet without a stain. 

Proudly and peacefully. 

— Aeram J. Ryan 

THOUGH I had often heard, before going mto 
the South, of the devotion of that section to 
the memory of General Robert E. Lee, I never 
fully realized the extent of that devotion until I began to 
become a little bit acquainted with Virginia. I remem- 
ber being struck, while in Norfolk, with the fact that 
portraits of General Lee were to be seen in many offices 
and homes, much as one might expect, at the present 
time, to find portraits of Joffre and Nivelle in the homes 
of France, or of Haig in the homes of Britain. It is not 
enough to say that the memory of Lee is to the South 
like that of Napoleon I to France, for it is more. The 
feeling of France for Napoleon is one of admiration, of 
delight in a national military genius, of hero-worship, 
but there is not intermingled with it the quality of pure 
affection which fully justifies the use of the word love, 

258 



COLONEL TAYLOR AND GENERAL LEE 

in characterizing- the feehng of the South for its great 
miHtary leader — the man of whom Lord Wolseley said : 
"He was a being apart and superior to all others in every- 
way; a man with whom none I ever knew, and very few 
of whom I ever read are worthy to be compared ; a man 
who was cast in a grander mould and made of finer 
metal than all other men." 

Nor is this love surprising, for whereas Napoleon was 
a self-seeking man, and one whose personal character 
was not altogether admirable in other respects, and 
whereas he could hardly be said to typify France's ideal 
of everything a gentleman should be, Lee sought noth- 
ing for himself, was a man of great nobility of charac- 
ter, and was in perfection a Virginia gentleman. At the 
end, moreover, where Napoleon's defeat was that of an 
aspirant to conquest, glory and empire, Lee's defeat was 
that of a cause, and the cause was reg^arded in the entire 
South as almost holy, so that, in defeat, the South felt 
itself martyred, and came to look upon its great general 
with a love and veneration unequaled in history, and 
much more resembling the feeling of France for the 
canonized Joan of Arc, than for the ambitious Corsican. 

When, therefore, my companion and I heard, while in 
Norfolk, that Colonel Walter H. Taylor, president of 
the Marine Bank of that city, had served through the 
Civil War on General Lee's stafif, we naturally became 
very anxious to meet him; and I am glad to say that 
Colonel Taylor, though at the time indisposed and con- 
fined to his home, was so kind as to receive us. 

259 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

He was seated in a large chair in his hbrary, on the 
second floor of his residence, a pleasant old-fashioned 
brick house at the corner of York and Yarmouth Streets 
— a slender man, not very tall, I judged (though I did 
not see him standing), not very strong at the moment, 
but with nothing of the decrepitude of old age about 
him, for all his seventy-seven years. Upon the contrary 
he was, in appearance and manner, delightfully alert, 
with the sort of alertness which lends to some men and 
women, regardless of their years, a suggestion of per- 
petual youthfulness. Such alertness, in those who have 
lived a long time, is most often the result of persistent 
intellectual activity, and the sign of it is usually to be 
read in the eyes. Colonel Taylor's keen, dark, observ- 
ant, yet kindly eyes, were perhaps his finest feature, 
though, indeed, all his features were fine, and his head, 
with its well-trimmed white hair and mustache, was one 
of great distinction. 

Mrs. Taylor (of whom we had previously been warned 
to beware, because she had not yet forgiven the "Yan- 
kees" for their sins) was also present: a beautiful old 
lady of unquenchable spirit, in whose manner, though 
she received us with politeness, we detected lurking 
danger. 

And why not ? Do not women remember some things 
longer than men remember them? Do not the sweet- 
hearts who stayed at home remember the continual dull 
dread they suffered while the men they loved faced 
danger, whereas the absent lovers were at least in part 

260 



COLONEL TAYLOR AND GENERAL LEE 

compensated for the risks they ran, by the continual 
sense of high adventure and achievement? 

Mrs. Taylor was Miss EHzabeth Selden Saunders, 
daughter of Captain John L. Saunders of Virginia, who 
died in i860, in the service of his country, a commander 
in the United States Navy. When the war broke out 
Miss Saunders, wishing to serve the Confederate Gov- 
ernment, became a clerk in the Surgeon General's office, 
at Richmond, and there she remained while Colonel 
Taylor, whose training at the Virginia Military Insti- 
tute, coupled with his native ability, made him valuable 
as an officer, followed the fortunes of General Lee, part 
of the time as the general's aide-de-camp, and the rest 
of the time as adjutant-general and chief of staff of the 
Army of Northern Virginia, in which capacities he was 
present at all general engagements of the army, under 
Lee. 

On April 2, 1865, when Lee's gallant but fast dwin- 
dling army, short of supplies, and so reduced in numbers 
as to be no longer able to stand against the powerful 
forces of Grant, was evacuating its lines at Petersburg, 
when it was evident that the capital of the Confederacy 
was about to fall, and the orders for retreat had been 
despatched by Colonel Taylor, in his capacity as adjutant 
— then the colonel went to his commander and asked for 
leave of absence over night, for the purpose of going to 
Richmond and being married. He tells the story in his 
exceedingly interesting and valuable book, "General Lee 
— His Campaigns in Virginia": 

261 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

At the close of the day's work, when all was in readiness for 
the evacuation of our lines under cover of the darkness of night, 
I asked permission of General Lee to ride over to Richmond and 
to rejoin him early the next morning, telling him that my mother 
and sisters were in Richmond and that I would like to say 
good-by to them, and that my sweetheart was there, and we had 
arranged, if practicable, to be married that night. He expressed 
some surprise at my entertaining such a purpose at that time, 
but when I explained to him that the home of my bride-elect was 
in the enemy's lines, that she was alone in Richmond and em- 
ployed in one of the departments of the government, and wished 
to follow the fortunes of the Confederacy should our lines be re- 
established farther South, he promptly gave his assent to my 
plans. I galloped to the railroad station, then at Dunlops, on the 
north side of the river, where I found a locomotive and several 
cars, constituting the " ambulance train," designed to carry to 
Richmond the last of the wounded of our army requiring hospital 
treatment. I asked the agent if he had another engine, when, 
pointing to one rapidly receding in the direction of Richmond, he 
replied, " Yonder goes the only locomotive we have besides the 
one attached to this train." Turning my horse over to the courier 
who accompanied me, with directions to join me in Richmond as 
soon as he could, I mounted the locomotive in waiting, directed 
the engineer to detach it from the cars and to proceed to overtake 
the engine ahead of us. It was what the sailors call a stern chase 
and a long one. We did not overtake the other locomotive until 
it had reached Falling Creek, about three-fourths of the distance, 
when I transferred to it and sent the other back to Petersburg. 
I reached Richmond without further incident, and soon after 
midnight I was married to Elizabeth Selden Saunders. ... As 
will be readily understood, the occasion was not one of great 
hilarity, though I was very happy ; my eyes were the only dry ones 
in the company. . . . 

The people of Richmond were greatly excited and in despair 
in the contemplation of the abandonment of their beautiful city 
by our troops. General Lee had for so long a time thwarted 

262 



COLONEL TAYLOR AND GENERAL LEE 

the designs of his powerful adversaries for the capture of the 
city, and seemed so unfaiHng and resourceful in his efforts to 
hold them at bay, that the good people found it difficult to realize 
that he was compelled at last to give way. There was universal 
gloom and despair at the thought that at the next rising of the 
sun the detested Federal soldiers would take possession of the 
city and occupy its streets. The transportation companies were 
busily engaged in arranging for the removal of the public stores 
and of the archives of the government. A fire in the lower part 
of the city was fiercely raging, and added greatly to the excite- 
ment. 

Somewhere near four o'clock on the morning of the 3d of 
April I bade farewell to all my dear ones, and in company with 
my brother-in-law. Colonel John S. Saunders, proceeded toward 
IMayo's Bridge, which we crossed to the south side of the James, 
in the lurid glare of the fire, and within the sound of several 
heavy explosions that we took to be the final scene in the career of 
the Confederate navy, then disappearing in smoke on the James 
River, near Rockets. 

Before we departed from the colonel's library, which 
we felt obliged to do much sooner than we wished to, 
owing to the condition of his health, he called our atten- 
tion to an oil portrait of his old commander, which occu- 
pied the place of honor above the mantelpiece, and asked 
his daughters to let us see his scrap-book, containing 
personal letters from General Lee, Jefferson Davis, and 
other distinguished men, as well as various war docu- 
ments of unusual interest. 

We felt it a great privilege to handle these old letters 
and to read them, and the charm of them was the greater 
for the affection in which the general held Colonel Tay- 
lor, as evidenced b}^ the tone in which he wrote. To us 

263 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

it was a wonderful evening. . . . And it still seems to 
me wonderful to think that I have met and talked with 
a man who issued Lee's orders, who rode forth with Lee 
when he went to meet Grant in conference at Appomat- 
tox, just before the surrender, who once slept under the 
same blanket with Lee, who knew Lee as well perhaps 
as one man can know another, and under conditions cal- 
culated to try men to the utmost. 

As adjutant. Colonel Taylor took an active part in 
arranging details of surrender and parole. He says: 

Each officer and soldier was furnished for his protection from 
arrest or annoyance with a sHp of paper containing his parole, 
signed by his commander and countersigned by an officer of the 
Federal army. 

I signed these paroles for all members of the staff, and when 
my own case was reached I requested General Lee to sign mine, 
which I have retained to the present time. 

This document, with Colonel Taylor's name and title 
in his own handwriting, and the signature of General 
Lee, I am able to reproduce here through the courtesy 
of the colonel's daughters, Mrs. William B. Baldwin 
and Miss Taylor, of Norfolk. It is the only parole 
which was signed personally by General Lee. 



A-ppornafto^ Con'i-t Ilciusi . Va. 

$?):';'l^' "f ^^ ^^- "^ ^-^ n l'(irokiUl'ris(MUt of i'le Armij of ^Cithern yirfmiu. ha^ per- 
i^^M'-'i^ i:iii>ioi' l'> w fo liis hoi'ie. "ml time yt'iiniin undisfitrlivil. 






264 



COLONEL TAYLOR AND GENERAL LEE 

On the back of the Httle sHp, which is of about the 
size of a bank check, is the countersignature of George 
H. Sharpe, Assistant Provost Marshal general : 



S^^-J^/^^c-^^^ 




Following his parole Colonel Taylor rode with Gen- 
eral Lee to Richmond. The general seemed to be in a 
philosophical frame of mind, but thought much of the fu- 
ture. The subject of the surrender and its consequences 
was about exhausted. The Colonel tells of one incident : 

On the route General Lee stopped for the night near the resi- 
dence of his brother, Mr. Carter Lee, in Powhatan County; and 
ahhough importuned by his brother to pass the night under his 
roof, the general persisted in pitching his tent by the side of the 
road and going into camp as usual. This continued self-denial 
can only be explained upon the hypothesis that he desired to have 
his men know that he shared their privations to the very last. 

This was perfectly in character with Lee. Through- 
out the War, we learn from Colonel Taylor's book, the 
general used the army ration, and lived the army life. 
He would not take up his quarters in a house, because 
he wished to share the lot of his men, and also because 
he feared that, in the event of the house falling into the 
hands of the enemy, the very fact of its having been 
occupied by him might possibly cause its destruction. It 

265 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

was only during the last year of the War, when his 
health was somewhat impaired, that he consented some- 
times to vary this rule. 

Lee's chivalrous nature is well shown forth in his 
famous General Orders, No. y^, issued at Chambers- 
burg, Pennsylvania, a few days before Gettysburg. 

After congratulating the troops on their good con- 
duct the general continued as follows: 

There have, however, been instances of forgetfulness on the 
part of some that they have in keeping the yet unsulHed reputation 
of the army, and that the duties exacted of us by civihzation and 
Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of the enemy 
than in our own. 

The commanding general considers that no greater disgrace 
could befall the army, and through it our whole people, than the 
perpetration of the barbarous outrages upon the unarmed and 
defenseless, and the wanton destruction of private property, that 
have marked the course of the enemy in our own country. 

Such proceedings not only degrade the perpetrators and all 
connected with them, but are subversive to the discipline and effi- 
ciency of the army, and destructive of the ends of our present 
movement. It must be remembered that we make war only upon 
armed men, and that we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs 
our people have sufifered without lowering ourselves in the eyes 
of all whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our 
enemies, and offending against Him to whom vengeance belong- 
eth, without whose favor and support our eft"orts must all prove 
in vain. The commanding general, therefore, earnestly exhorts 
the troops to abstain with most scrupulous care from unnecessary 
or wanton injury to private property, and he enjoins upon all 
officers to arrest and bring to summary punishment all who shall 
in any way offend against the orders on this subject. 

R. E. Lee, 



General. 



266 



COLONEL TAYLOR AND GENERAL LEE 

Truly, a document to serve as a model for warriors 
of all future generations, albeit one showing an utter 
lack of ^'Kultur"! 

Said Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts: 'T 
doubt if a hostile force ever advanced into an enemy's 
country, or fell back from it in retreat, leaving behind 
it less cause of hate and bitterness than did the Army 
of Northern Virginia in that memorable campaign." 

After the war, Colonel Taylor and his wife settled in 
Norfolk, where, within a very short time, a United 
States grand jury indicted Jefferson Davis and General 
Lee for treason — this, in the case of Lee, being in direct 
violation of the terms of surrender. When Grant 
learned of the shameful action of the grand jury he com- 
plained to Washington and caused the proceedings 
against Lee to be dropped. 

In Colonel Taylor's scrap-book I found a letter written 

by Lee before the indictment had been quashed, referring 

to the subject: 

Richmond, Va. 

June 17, 1865. 
My dear Colonel : 

I am very much obliged to you for your letter of the 13th. I 
had heard of the indictment by the grand jury at Norfolk, and 
made up my mind to let the authorities take their course. I have 
no wish to avoid any trial the government may order, and cannot 
flee. I hope others may be unmolested, and that you at least may 
be undisturbed. 

I am sorry to hear that our returned soldiers cannot obtain 
employment. Tell them they must all set to work, and if they 
cannot do what they prefer, do what they can. Virginia wants 

267 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

all their aid, all their support, and the presence of all her sons 
to sustain and recuperate her. They must therefore put them- 
selves in a position to take part in her government, and not be 
deterred by obstacles in their way. There is much to be done 
which they only can do. 

Very truly yours, 

R. E. Lee. 

As time went on, and the more gaping wounds began 
to heal, Colonel Taylor's letters from the general took 
in many cases a lighter and happier tone. After some 
years, when four daughters had been born to Colonel and 
Mrs. Taylor, while yet they had no son, the general 
chaffed them gently on the subject : "Give my congrat- 
ulations to Mrs. Taylor," he wrote. "Tell her I hope 
that when her fancy for girls is satisfied (mine is ex- 
orbitant) she will begin upon the boys. We must have 
somebody to work for them." 

One of the colonel's sons was present when I came 
upon this letter. 

"And you see," he smiled, "my father obeyed his old 
commander to the last, for the next baby was a boy, and 
the next, and the next, and the next, until there were 
as many boys as girls in our family." 

Colonel Taylor died at his home in Norfolk, March i, 
1916, and on the subsequent June 15, was followed by 
his wife. 

His death leaves but three members of Lee's staff 
surviving, namely, Rev. Giles B. Cooke, of Portsmouth, 
Virginia, Inspector General; Major Henry E. Young, 

268 



COLONEL TAYLOR AND GENERAL LEE 

of Charleston, South Carolina, Judge Advocate Gen- 
eral; and Colonel T. M. R. Talcott, of Richmond, Vir- 
ginia, Aide-de-Camp. Of these officers only the first 
two surrendered with General Lee, Colonel Talcott hav- 
ing left the staff by promotion in 1863. 

Yes, two of them surrendered, but if we are to be- 
lieve Charles Francis Adams we cannot say that Lee 
and his forces were actually vanquished, for as the Mas- 
sachusetts soldier-author put it: 

"Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia never sus- 
tained defeat. Finally succumbing to exhaustion, to 
the end they were not overthrown in fight." 



269 



THE HEART OF THE SOUTH 



CHAPTER XXVI 
RALEIGH AND JOSEPHUS DANIELS 

Jedge Crutchfield give de No'th Ca'Hna nigger frown ; 
De mahkets says ouh tehapin am secon'-rate, 
An' Mistuh Daniels, he call Raleigh his hum town. 
— I wondah what kin be de mattuh wid ouh State? 

JUST as it is the fashion in the Middle West to 
speak jestingly of Kansas, it is the fashion in the 
South to treat lightly the State of North Carolina. 
And just as my companion and I., long ago, on another 
voyage of discovery, were eager to get into Kansas and 
find out what that fabulous Commonwealth was really 
like, so we became anxious, as we heard the gossip about 
the "Old North State," to enter it and form our own 
conclusions. The great drawback to an attempt to see 
North Carolina, however, lies in the fact that North 
Carolina is, so to speak, spread very thin. It has no 
great solid central city occupying a place in its thoughts 
and its affairs corresponding to that occupied by Rich- 
mond, in its relation to Virginia. Like Mississippi, it is 
a State of small towns and small cities. Its metropolis, 
Charlotte, had, by the 19 lo census, less than 35,000 in- 
habitants; its seaport, Wilmington, a little more than 
25,000; its capital, Raleigh, less than 20,000; its beau- 
tiful mountain resort, Asheville, fourth city in the State, 
less than 19,000. 

273 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

I hasten to add that the next census will undoubtedly 
show considerable growth in all these cities. In Raleigh 
I found every one insistent on this point. The town is 
growing; it is a going place; a great deal of new build- 
ing is in progress ; and when you ask about the popula- 
tion, progressive citizens are prepared to do much better 
by their city than the census takers did, some years ago. 
They talk thirty thousand, instead of twenty, and they 
are ready with astonishing statistics about the number 
of students in the schools and colleges as compared with 
the total population of the city — statistics showing that 
though Raleigh is not large she is progressive. Which 
is quite true. 

I recollect that Judge Francis D. Winston, former 
Lieutenant Governor of the State, United States Dis- 
trict Attorney, and the most engaging raconteur in the 
Carolinas, contributed a story to a discussion of 
Raleigh's population, which occurred, one evening, at a 
dinner at the Country Club. 

"A promoter," he said, "was once trying to borrow 
money on a boom town. He went to a banker and 
showed him a map, not of what the town was, but of 
what he claimed it was going to be. 'Here,' he said, 
'is where the town hall will stand. In this lot will be 
the opera house. Over here we are going to have a 
beautiful park. And on this corner we are going to 
erect a tall granite office building.' 

" 'But,' said the banker, coldly, 'we lend money only 
on the basis of population.' 

274 



RALEIGH AND JOSEPHUS DANIELS 

'' That 's all right,' returned the promoter. 'Meas- 
ured by any known standard except an actual count, we 
have a population of two hundred thousand.' " 

I shall not attempt to point this talc more than to 
recommend it to the attention of the secretary of the 
Chamber of Commerce in every city in the United 
States. 

Raleigh is situated within seven miles of the exact 
center of North Carolina. The land on which the city 
stands was purchased by the State, in 1792, from a man 
named Joel Lane, whose former house still stands. The 
town was then laid out in a one mile square, with the 
site selected for the State Capitol directly at the center 
of it, and lots were sold off by the State to individuals, 
the proceeds of these sales being used to build the Cap- 
itol. As a result the parks, streets and sidewalks of 
the original old town still belong to the State of North 
Carolina, and the city has jurisdiction over them only by 
courtesy of the State government. Raleigh has, of 
course, much outgrown its original dimensions, and the 
government of the town, outside the original square mile 
at the center, is as in other towns. 

While Raleigh has not the look of age which char- 
acterizes many old southern cities, causing them to de- 
light the eye and the imagination, its broad streets have 
here and there a building old enough to remove from 
the town any air of raw newness, and to make it a home- 
like looking place. The sidewalks are wide; when we 

275 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

were in Raleigh those of the principal streets were 
paved largely with soft-colored old red bricks, which, 
however, were being taken up and replaced with cement. 
Not being a resident of Raleigh, and consequently not 
having been obliged to tread the rough brick pavements 
daily, I was sorry to witness this victory of utility over 
beauty. 

One of the pleasant old buildings is the Yarborough 
Hotel, at which my companion and I stayed. The Yar- 
borough is an exceedingly good hotel for a city of the 
size of Raleigh, especially, it may be added, when that 
city is in the South. The Capitol, standing among trees 
in a small park, also gathers a fine flavor from age. In 
one of the many simple dignified apartments of this 
building my companion and I were introduced to the 
gentleman who was governor of the State at the time 
of our visit. It seemed to me that he had a look both 
worn and apprehensive, and that, while we talked, he 
was waiting for something. I don't know how I gath- 
ered this impression, but it came to me definitely. After 
we had departed from the executive chamber I asked 
the gentleman who had taken us there if the governor 
was ill. 

"No," he replied. "All our governors look like that 
after they have been in office for a while." 

"From overwork?" 

"No, from an overworked jest — the jest about 'what 
the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of 
South Carolina.' Every one who meets the governor 

276 



RALEIGH AND JOSEPHUS DANIELS 

thinks of that joke and beHeves confidently that no one 
has ever before thought of this appHcation of it. So 
they all pull it on him. For the first few months our 
governors stand it pretty well, but after that they begin 
to break down. They feel they ought to smile, but they 
can't. They begin to dread meeting strangers, and to 
show it in their bearing. When in private life our gov- 
ernor had a very pleasant expression, but like all the 
others, he has acquired, in office, the expression of an 
iron dog." 

Raleigh's most widely-known citizen is Josephus 
Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, and publisher of the 
Raleigh "News and Observer." This paper, published 
in the morning, and the "Times," a rival paper, pub- 
lished in the afternoon, are, I believe, the only dailies in 
the city. 

Mr. Daniels has been so much discussed that I was 
greatly interested in hearing what Raleigh had to say 
of him. Every one knew him personally. The men on 
his paper seemed to be very fond of him; others held 
various opinions. 

In 1894 Mr. Daniels came from Washington, D. C, 
where he had been chief clerk in the Department of the 
Interior, when Hoke Smith was Secretary, and acquired 
the newspaper of which he has since been proprietor. 
In its first years under Mr. Daniels, the paper is said 
to have gone through severe financial struggles, and 
there is an amusing story current, about the way the 
payroll was met upon one occasion. According to this 

2TJ 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

tale, the business manager of the paper came to Mr. 
Daniels, one day, and informed him that he needed sixty- 
dollars more to make the payroll, and did n't know where 
he was going to get it. The only ready asset in sight, 
it is related, was several cases of a patent medicine 
known as ''Mrs. Joe Persons' Remedy," which had been 
taken by the "News and Observer" in payment for ad- 
vertising space. Mr. Daniels had a few dollars, and his 
business manager had a railroad pass. With these re- 
sources the latter went out on the road and sold the 
patent medicine for enough to make up the deficit. 

Until Mr. Daniels was appointed Secretary of the 
Navy he seems to have been regarded by many citizens 
of Raleigh, as a good, earnest, hard-working man, pos- 
sessed of considerable personal magnetism and a good 
political nose — a man who could scent how the pack was 
running; take a short-cut, and presently appear to be 
leading. In other words an opportunist. Though he 
has not much education, and though as a writer he is 
far from polished, it is said that he has written powerful 
editorials. "When his editorials have been good," said 
one gentleman, "it is because he has been stirred up over 
something, and because he manages sometimes to get 
into his writing the intensity of his own personality." 
His office used to be, and still is, when he is in Raleigh, 
a sort of political headquarters, and he used to be able 
to write editorials while half a dozen politicians were 
sitting around his desk, talking. 

With his paper he has done much good in the State, 



RALEIGH AND JOSEPHUS DANIELS 

notably by fighting consistently for prohibition and for 
greater public educational advantages. The strong ed- 
ucational movement in North Carolina began with a 
group of men chief among whom were the late Governor 
Charles B. Aycock, called "the educational governor"; 
Dr. E. A. Alderman, who, though president of the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, is a North Carolinian and was for- 
merly president of the University of that State; Dr. 
Charles D. McKeever who committed the State to the 
principle of higher education for women, and other men 
of similar high purpose. A gentleman who was far 
from an unqualified admirer of Mr. Daniels, told me 
that without his aid the great educational advance which 
the state has certainly made of recent years could hardly 
have been accomplished, and that the same thing applies 
in the case of prohibition — which has been adopted in 
North Carolina. 

"What sort of man is he?" I asked this gentleman. 

"Lie is the old type of Methodist," he said. "He is 
the kind of man who believes that the whale swallowed 
Jonah. He has the same concept of religion that he 
had as a child. I differ with his policies, his politics, his 
mental methods, but I don't think anybody here doubts 
that he is trying, not only to do the moral thing himself, 
but to force others to adopt, as rules for public conduct, 
the exact code in which he personally believes, and which 
he certainly follows. His mental processes are often 
crude, yet he has much native shrewdness and the abil- 
ity to grasp situations as they arise. 

279 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

"He does not come of the aristocratic class, which 
probably accounts for his failure, when he first became 
secretary, to perceive the necessity for discipline in the 
navy, and the benefits of naval tradition. 

''He was an ardent follower — I might say swallower 
— of Bryan, gobbling whole all of the "Great Common- 
er's" vagaries. It has been said, more or less humor- 
ously, but doubtless with a foundation of fact, that he 
was "Secretary of War in all of Bryan's cabinets." 
That shows where Bryan placed him. Yet when Bryan 
broke with Wilson and made his exit from the Cabinet, 
Daniels found it perfectly simple, apparently, to drop 
the Bryanism which had, hitherto, been the very essence 
of his life, and become a no less ardent supporter of the 
President. 

'When he was first taken into the cabinet he evidently 
regarded the finer social amenities as matters of no con- 
sequence, or even as effeminacies. He had but little 
sense of the fitness of things, and was, in consequence, 
continually making faux pas; but he is observant ; he has 
learned a great deal in the course of his life as a cabinet 
member, both as to his work in the Department, and as 
to the niceties of formal social life." 

At the time of our visit to Raleigh I had not met Mr. 
Daniels, nor heard him speak. Since that time I have 
heard him several times and have talked with him. 
Also I have talked of him with a number of men who 
have been thrown more or less closely in contact with 
him. As is well known, naval officers detested him with 

280 




"The Southern Statesman who serves his section best, serves the countrv best." 



RALEIGH AND JOSEPHUS DANIELS 

peculiar unanimity. This was true up to the time of 
our entering the War. Whether matters have changed 
greatly since then I am unable to say. One officer, well 
known in the navy, said to me quite seriously that he 
believed the navy would be better off without its two 
best dreadnoughts if in losing them it could also lose Mr. 
Daniels. Such sentiments were peculiarly unanimous 
among officers. On the other hand, however, a high 
officer, who has been quite close to the Secretary, in- 
forms me that it is indeed true that he has improved as 
experience has come to him. This officer stated that 
when Mr. Daniels first took office he seemed to be defi- 
nitely antagonistic to officers of the navy. *'He ap- 
peared to suspect them of pulling political wires and 
working in their own interests. That was in the days 
when he seemed almost to encourage insubordination 
among the enlisted men, by his attitude toward them, in 
contrast to his attitude towards their superiors. Of 
course it was demoralizing to the service. I>ut there 
has been a marked change in the Secretary since Bryan 
left the Cabinet." From several sources I have heard 
the same evidence. I never heard any one say that Mr. 
Daniels was really an able Secretary of the Navy, but I 
have heard many say that he improved. 

Personally he is a very likable man. His face is kind 
and gentle ; his features are interestingly irregular and 
there are heavy wrinkles about his mouth and eyes — the 
former adding something to the already humorous 
twinkle of the eyes. His voice has a timbre reminding 

281 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

me of George M. Cohan's voice. He is hardly an orator 
in the sense that Bryan is, yet he is not without sim- 
ple oratorical tricks — as for example a tremolo, as of 
emotion, which I have heard him use in uttering 
such a phrase as "the grea-a-a-af Daniel JVeb-stevr 
Also, he wears a low turnover collar and a black 
string tie — a fact which would not be worth noting did 
these not form a part of what amounts almost to a 
uniform worn by politicians of more or less the Bryan 
type. Almost invariably there seems to be some- 
thing of the minister and something of the actor in such 
men. 

Once I asked one of the famous Washington corre- 
spondents what manner of man Mr. Daniels was. 

"He 's a man," he said, "that you 'd like to go with on 
a hunting trip in his native North Carolina. He would 
be a good companion and would have a lot of funny 
stories. He is full of kind intentions. Had you known 
him before the War, and had he liked you, and had you 
wished to take a ride upon a battleship, he would be dis- 
posed to order up a battleship and send you for a ride, 
even if, by doing so, he muddled up the fleet a little. 
That would be in line with his fixing it for moving pic- 
ture people to act scenes on a battleship's deck — which 
he permitted. He saw no reason why that was not 
proper, and the kind of people who admire him most are 
those who, likewise, see no reason why it was not proper. 
The great lack in his nature is that of personal dignity 
— or even the dignity which should be his because of his 

282 



RALEIGH AND JOSEPHUS DANIELS 

position. If you are sitting beside him and he is 
amiably disposed toward you, he may throw his arm 
over your shoulder, or massage your knee while talking 
with you. 

"But if some friend of his were to go to him and con- 
vince him that he lacked dignity, he is the kind of man 
who, in my judgment, would become so much the worse. 
That is, if he attempted to attain dignity he would not 
achieve it, but would merely grow arbitrary. That, to 
my mind, shows his great ineradicable weakness, for it 
not only reveals him as a man too little for his job, but 
prevents his comprehending the basic thing upon which 
naval discipline is founded. Nevertheless, as a man 
you like him. It is as Secretary of the Navy, and par- 
ticularly as a War Secretary, that you very definitely 
don't. 

Some time after our visit to Raleigh my companion 
and I heard Secretary Daniels speak in Charleston. He 
told a funny story and talked generalities about the navy. 
That was before the United States entered the War. I 
do not know what he meant the speech for, but what it 
actually was, was a speech against preparedness. So 
was the speech made on the same occasion by Lemuel P. 
Padgett, chairman of the House Committee on Naval 
Affairs. It was a disingenuous speech, a speech to lull 
the country into confidence, a speech which, alone, should 
have been sufficient to prove Mr. Padgett's unfitness to 
serve on that committee. Mr. Daniels argued that 
"Germany's preparedness had not kept Germany out of 

283 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

war" ; that seemed enough, but there was one thing he 
said which utterly dumbfounded me. It was this: 

"The Soutlievn statesman zvJw serves his section best, 
serz'es the country best/' 

Let the reader reflect for a moment upon such an ut- 
terance. Carried a httle farther what would it mean? 
Would it not be equally logical to say that the man who 
serves himself best serves the country best? It is the 
theory of narrow sectionalism, and by implication, at 
least, the theory of individualism as well. And section- 
alism and individualism are two of the great curses of 
the United States. 

Compare with Mr. Daniels' words those of John Hay 
who, veiling fine patriotism beneath a web of delicate 
humor, said: 

"In my bewilderment of origin and experience I can 
only put on an aspect of deep humility in any gathering 
of favorite sons, and confess that I am nothing but an 
American." 

Or again, compare with them the famous words of 
Patrick Henry : 

"I am not a Virginian, but an American." 

Clearly, one point of view or the other is wrong. Per- 
haps Mr. Daniels has more light on sectional questions 
than had Patrick Henry or John Hay. At all events, 
the Charleston audience applauded. 

284 



CHAPTER XXVII 
ITEMS FROM 'THE OLD NORTH STATE" 

TWO of the most interesting- things we saw in 
Raleigh were the model jail on the top floor of 
the new County Court House, where a lot of very 
honest looking rustics were confined to await trial for 
making ''blockade" (otherwise moonshine) whisky, and 
the North Carolina Hall of History, which occupies a 
floor in the fine new State Administration Building, op- 
posite the Capitol. At the head of the first stair landing 
in the Administration Building Is a memorial tablet to 
William Sidney Porter ("O Henry"), who was born in 
Greensboro, North Carolina, with a bust of the author, 
in relief, by Lorado Taft. Porter, it may be mentioned, 
was a connection of Worth Bagley, the young ensign 
who was the only American naval officer killed in the 
Spanish-American War. Bagley was a brother of Mrs. 
Josephus Daniels. A monument to him stands in the 
park before the Capitol. Aside from Porter, the only 
author well known in our time whom I heard mentioned 
in connection with North Carolina, was the Rev. 
Thomas Dixon, whose name is most familiar, perhaps, 
in connection with the moving-picture called "The Birth 
of a Nation," taken from one of his novels. Mr. Dixon 
was born in the town of Shelby, North Carolina, and 

285 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

was for some years pastor of the Tabernacle Baptist 
Church, Raleigh. 

The Hall of History, containing a great variety of 
State relics, is one of the most fascinating musemns I 
ever visited. Too much praise cannot be given Colonel 
Fred A. Olds and Mr. Marshall De Lancey Haywood, 
of the North Carolina Historical Society, for making it 
what it is. As with the Confederate Museum in Rich- 
mond, so, here, it is impossible to give more than a faint 
idea of the interest of the museum's contents. Among 
the exhibits of which I made note, I shall, however, men- 
tion a few. There was a letter written from Paris in 
the handwriting of John Paul Jones, requesting a copy 
of the Constitution of North Carolina ; there was the Ku 
Klux warning issued to one Ben Turner of Northamp- 
ton County ; and there was an old newspaper advertise- 
ment signed by James J. Selby, a tailor, dated at Raleigh, 
June 24, 1824, offering a reward of ten dollars for the 
capture and return of two runaways : "apprentice boys, 
legally bound, named William and Andrew Johnson." 
The last named boy was the same Andrew Johnson who 
later became a distinctly second-rate President of the 
United States. Also there was a peculiarly tragic Civil 
War memento, consisting of a note which was found 
clasped in the dead hand of Colonel Isaac Avery, of the 
6th North Carolina Regiment, who was killed while 
commanding a brigade on the second day at Gettysburg. 

Tell my father I died with my face to the enemy. 

286 



ITEMS FROM "THE OLD NORTH STATE" 

These words were written by the fallen officer with his 
left hand, his right arm having- been rendered useless 
by his mortal wound. For ink he used his own life 
blood. 

Also in the museum may be seen the chart-book of 
Blackbeard, the pirate, who, one of the curators of the 
museum informed me, was the same person as Edward 
Teach. Blackbeard, who is commemorated in the name 
of Blackbeard's Island, off the coast of South Georgia, 
met his fate when he encountered a cruiser fitted out by 
Governor Spotswood of Virginia and commanded by 
Lieutenant Maynard. Maynard found Blackbeard's 
ship at Okracoke Inlet, on the North Carolina coast. 
Before he and his men could board the pirate vessel the 
pirates came and boarded them. Severe fighting en- 
sued, but the pirates were defeated, Maynard himself 
killing Blackbeard in single combat with swords. The 
legend around Okrakoke is that Blackbeard's bad for- 
tune on this occasion came to him because of the unlucky 
number of his matrimonial adventures, the story being 
that he had thirteen wives. It is said also that his van- 
quishers cut off his head and hung it at the yard-arm 
of their ship, throwing his body into the sea, and that 
as soon as the body struck the water the head began to 
call, "Come on, Edward !" whereupon the headless body 
swam three times around the ship. Personally I think 
there may be some slight doubt about the authenticity 
of this part of the story. For, while from one point of 
view we might say that to swim about in such aimless 

287 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

fashion would be the very thing a man without a head 
might do, yet from another point of view the question 
arises : Would a man whose head had just been severed 
from his body feel like taking such a long swim ? 

And what a rich lot of other historic treasures ! 

Did you know, for instance, that Flora Macdonald, 
the Scottish heroine, who helped Prince Charles Edward 
to escape, dressed as a maidservant, after the Battle of 
Culloden, in 1746, came to America with her husband 
and many relatives just before the Revolutionary War 
and settled at Cross Creek (now Fayetteville), North 
Carolina? When General Donald Macdonald raised 
the Royal standard at the time of the Revolution, her 
husband and many of her kinsmen joined him, and these 
were later captured at the Battle of Moore's Creek 
Bridge, in 1776, and taken as prisoners to Philadelphia. 
Yes; and Flora Macdonald's garter-buckles are now in 
the museum at Raleigh. 

A portrait of Captain James J. Waddell, C. S. N., who 
was a member of a famous North Carolina family, re- 
calls the story of his post-bellum cruise, in command of 
the Shenandoah, when, not knowing that the War was 
over, he preyed for months on Federal commerce in the 
South Seas. 

The museum of course contains many uniforms worn 
by distinguished soldiers of the Confederacy and many 
old flags, among them one said to be the original flag of 
the Confederacy. This flag was designed by Orren R. 
Smith of Louisburg, North Carolina, and was made in 



I 



ITEMS FROM 'THE OLD NORTH STATE'' 

that town. The journals of the Confederate Congress 
show that countless designs for a flag were submitted, 
that the Committee on a Flag reported that all designs 
had been rejected and returned, the committee having 
adopted one of its own; nevertheless Mr. Smith's claim 
to have designed the flag finally adopted is so well sup- 
ported that the Confederate Veterans, at their General 
Reunion held in Richmond in 191 5, passed a resolution 
endorsing it. 

Also in the museum is the shot-riddled smokestack of 
the Confederate ram Albemarle, which was built on the 
farm of Peter E. Smith, on Roanoke River, and is said 
to have been the first vessel ever launched sidewise. 
The Albemarle, after a glorious career, was sunk by 
Lieutenant Cushing, U. S. N., in his famous exploit with 
a torpedo carried on a pole at the bow of a launch. It 
will be remembered that the launch was sunk by the 
shock and that only Cushing and one member of his 
crew survived, swimming away under fire. 

North Carolina also claims — and not without some 
justice — that the first English settlement on this con- 
tinent was not that at Jamestown, but the one made by 
Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition, under Amadas and Bar- 
lowe, which landed at Roanoke Island, August 4, 1584, 
and remained there for some weeks. The Jamestown 
colony, say the North Carolinians, was merely the first 
to stick. 

Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, across the sound from 
Roanoke Island, is the site of the first flight of a man 

289 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

in an aeroplane, the Wright brothers having tried out 
their first crude plane there, among the Kill-Devil sand 
dunes. A part of the original plane is preserved in the 
museum. Nor must I leave the museum without men- 
tioning the bullet-riddled hat of General W. R. Cox, and 
his gray military coat, with a blood-stained gash in 
front, where a sohd shell ripped across. General Cox's 
son, Mr. Albert Cox, was with us in the museum when 
we stopped to look at this grim souvenir. "It tore fa- 
ther open in front," he said, "spoiled a coat which had 
cost him $550, Confederate, and damaged his watch- 
chain. Nevertheless he lived to take part in the last 
charge at Appomattox, and the watchchain was n't so 
badly spoiled but what, with the addition of some new 
links, it could be worn." And he showed us where the 
chain, which he himself was wearing at the time, had 
been repaired. 

I must say something, also, of the North Carolina Col- 
lege of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, an institution 
doing splendid work, and doing it efficiently, both in its 
own buildings and through extension courses. Fifty- 
two per cent of the students at this college earn their 
way through, either wholly or in part. And better yet, 
eighty-three per cent of the graduates stick to the prac- 
tical work afterwards — an unusually high record. 

The president of the college. Dr. D. H. Hill, is a son 
of the Confederate general of the same name, who has 
been called "the Ironsides of the South." 

There are a number of other important educational 

290 



ITEMS FROM "THE OLD NORTH STATE" 

institutions in and about Raleigh, and there is one 
which, if not important, is at all events, a curio. This is 
"Latta University," consisting of a few flimsy shacks 
in the negro village of Oberlin, on the outskirts of 
Raleigh. 

'Trofessor" Latta is one of the rare negroes who com- 
bines the habit with white folks of the old fashioned 
southern darky, and the astuteness of the "new issue" 
in high finance. Years ago he conceived the idea of 
establishing a negro school near Raleigh, to which he 
gave the above mentioned name. He had no funds, no 
credit and little or no education. Nevertheless he had 
ideas, the central one of which was that New England 
was the land of plenty. With the "university" in his 
head, and with a miscellaneous collection of photographs, 
he managed to make a tour of northern cities, and came 
back with his pockets lined. As a result he procured a 
little land, put up frame buildings, gathered a few youths 
about him, and was fully launched on his career as a 
university president. 

So long as the money held out, Latta was content to 
drift along with his school. When he came to the bot- 
tom of the bag he invested the last of his savings in an- 
other ticket north and, armed with his title of "presi- 
dent," made addresses to northern audiences and re- 
plenished his finances with their contributions. 

Finally, as the great act of his career, Latta managed 
to get passage to Europe and was gone for several 
months. When he came back he had added a manu- 

291 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

script to his possessions : 'The History of My Life and 
Work," which he pubHshed, and which is one of the most 
curious volumes I have ever seen. 

It is illustrated — largely with photographs of the 
author. One of the pictures is entitled, *'Rev. M. L. 
Latta when he first commenced to build Latta Univer- 
sity." This shows Latta with the tips of his fingers rest- 
ing on a small table. Another picture shows him posed 
with one hand raised and the other resting on what is 
unmistakably the same little table. The latter picture, 
however, has the caption, '*Rev. M. L. Latta making a 
speech in Pawtucket, R. I., at Y. M. C. A." Both pic- 
tures were all too clearly taken in a photographer's 
studio. Another page shows us, "Rev. M. L. Latta and 
three of his Admirable Presidents." In this case Latta 
merely takes for himself the upper right-hand corner, 
the other eminent persons pictured being ex-Presidents 
Roosevelt, McKinley and Cleveland. The star illustra- 
tion, however, is a "made up" picture, in which a photo- 
graph of Latta, looking spick-and-span, has been pasted 
onto what is very obviously a painted picture of a hall 
full of people in evening dress, all of them gazing at 
Latta, who stands upon the stage, dignified, suave, im- 
pressive, and all dressed-up by the brush of the "re- 
toucher." This picture is called: "In the Auditorium 
at London, in 1894." Similar artfulness is shown in 
pictures of the "university" buildings, where the same 
frame structure, photographed from opposite ends, ap- 
pears in one case as, "Young Ladies' Dormitory," and 

292 



ITEMS FROM "THE OLD NORTH STATE" 

in the other as, ''Chapel and Young Men's Dormi- 
tory." 

In his autobiography, Latta tells how, in the course 
of getting his own schooling, he raised money by teach- 
ing a district school during vacation. He says : 

After paying my expenses, I had nearly a hundred dollars to 
return to school with. When I returned 1 was able to dress very 
neatly indeed, and the young ladies received me very cordially on 
the green during social hour. Before I taught school it was a 
common saying among the young ladies and young men "Latta" ; 
but after I returned with a hundred dollars it was "Mr, Latta" 
all over the campus. I would hear the young ladies saying among 
themselves, "I bet Mr. Latta will not go with you — he will cor- 
respond wnth me this afternoon." I paid no attention to it. I 
said to myself, "Don't you see what a hundred dollars will do?" 

In another place the Professor reveals how he came 
to write his book: "Professor King, one of the teach- 
ers at Latta University said to me, Tf I had done what 
you have done I would have wrote a history of my life 
several years ago.' " 

The best part of the book, however, gives us Latta's 
account of his doings in London: 

Just before I left the city of London I was invited by a dis- 
tinguished friend, a close relation to Queen Victoria, to make 
a speech. He told me there would be a meeting in one of the 
large halls in that city. I can't just think of the name of the 
hall. He invited me to be present. The distinguished friend 
that I have just mentioned presided over the meeting. There was 
an immense audience present. If memory serves me right, I was 
the only Negro in the hall. The gentleman came to me and 
asked if I would make a speech. I told him I had already deliv- 

293 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

ered one address, besides several sermons I had preached, and I 
thought that I would not speak again during my stay. I ac- 
cepted the invitation, however, and spoke. 

The Professor then tells how he was introduced as 
one whose addresses were "among the ablest ever de- 
livered in London," Also he gives his speech in full. 
Great events followed. His distinguished unnamed 
friend, the "close relation of the Queen," came to him 
soon after, he says, and asked him if he had "ever been 
to the palace." 

Continues Latta: 

lie said to me, "If you will come over before you leave the 
city, and call to see me, I will take you to the palace with me 
and introduce you to the Queen." I told him I would do so, 
that I had heard a good deal about the royal throne, and I would 
be very much interested to see the palace. He said he thought 
I would, because the government was very different from ours. 

I called at his residence as I had promised, and he went with 
me to the palace. The Queen knew him, of course. He was re- 
ceived very cordially. Everything shined so much like gold in 
the palace that I had to stop and think where I was. He intro- 
duced me to the Queen, and told her I was from North America. 
He told her that I spoke at a meeting he presided over, and he 
enjoyed my speech very much. He told her we had an immense 
audience, and all the people were well pleased with the speech. 
The Queen said she was more than glad to meet me, and she 
would have liked very much to have been present, and heard the 
speech that her cousin said I made. . . . She told me she hoped 
that would not be the last visit I would make to their city. I 
shook hands with her and bade her good-bye. The distinguished 
friend carried me and showed me the different departments of 
the palace, and I bade him good-bye. 

294 



ITEMS FROM "THE OLD NORTH STATE" 

In Raleigh, I think, they rather like Latta. It amuses 
them to seem him go north and get money, and it is said 
that he appreciates the situation himself. He ought to. 
Not many southern negroes have such comfortable 
homes as *'Latta University's" best kept-up building — 
the residence of the President. 



295 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
UNDER ST. MICHAEL'S CHIMES 

And where St. Michael's chimes 
The fragrant hours exquisitely tell, 
Making the world one loveliness, 
like a true poet's rhymes. 

— Richard Watson Gilder. 

IT has been said — by Mrs. T. P. O'Connor, I think — 
that whereas twenty-five letters of introduction for 
New York may produce one invitation to dinner, 
one letter of introduction for Charleston will pro- 
duce twenty-five dinner invitations. If this be an 
exaggeration it is, at least, exaggeration in the right 
direction ; that is, along the lines of truth. For though 
Charleston's famed "exclusiveness" is very real, making 
letters of introduction very necessary to strangers de- 
siring to see something of the city's social life, such 
letters produce, in Charleston, as Mrs. O'Connor sug- 
gests, results definite and delightful. 

Immediately upon our arrival, my companion and I 
sent out several letters we had brought with us, and 
presently calling cards began to arrive for us at the 
hotel. Also there came courteous little notes, delivered 
in most cases by hand, according to the old Charleston 
custom — a custom surviving pleasantly from times 

296 



UNDER ST. MICHAEL'S CHIMES 

when there were no postal arrangements, but plenty of 
slaves to run errands. Even to this day, I am told, in- 
vitations to Charleston's famous St. Cecilia balls are 
delivered by hand. 

One of the notes we received revealed to us a char- 
acteristic custom of the city. It contained an invitation 
to occupy places in the pew of a distinguished family, at 
St. Michael's Church, on the approaching Sunday morn- 
ing. In order to realize the significance of such an 
invitation one must understand that St. Michael's is 
to Charleston, socially, what St. George's, Hanover 
Square, is to London. A beautiful old building, sur- 
rounded by a historic burial ground and surmounted by 
a delicate white spire containing fine chimes, it strongly 
suggests the architectural touch of Sir Christopher 
Wren ; but it is not by Wren, for he died a number of 
years before 1752, when the cornerstone of St. Mi- 
chael's was laid. When the British left Charleston — or 
Charles Town, as the name of the place stands in the 
early records — after occupying it during the Revolu- 
tionary War, they took with them, to the horror of the 
city, the bells of St. Michael's, and the church books. 
The silver, however, was saved, having been concealed 
on a plantation some miles from Charleston. Later the 
bells were returned. 

Pre-Revolutionary Charleston was divided into two 
parishes: St. Michael's below Broad Street, and St. 
Philip's above. Under governmental regulation citi- 
zens were not allowed to hold pews in both churches 

297 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

unless they owned houses in both parishes. St. Mi- 
chael's, being- nearer the battery, in which region are the 
finest old houses, had, perhaps, the wealthier congrega- 
tion, but St. Philip's is, to my mind, the more beautiful 
church of the two, largely because of the open space 
before it, and the graceful outward bend of Church 
Street in deference to the projecting portico. 

When the Civil War broke out St. Philip's bells were 
melted and made into cannon, but those of St. Michael's 
were left in place until cannonballs from the blockading 
fleet struck the church, when they were taken down and 
sent, together with the silver plate, to Columbia, South 
Carolina, for safe-keeping. But Columbia was, as mat- 
ters turned out, the worst place to which they could have 
been sent. The silver was looted by troops under Sher- 
man, and the bells were destroyed when the city was 
burned. The fragments were, however, collected and 
sent to England, whence the bells originally came, and 
there they were recast. Their music — perhaps the most 
characteristic of all the city's characteristic sounds — has 
been called *'the voice of Charleston." Of the silver 
only a few fragments have been returned. One piece 
was found in a pawn shop in New York, and another in 
a small town in Ohio. Mais que voules-vous? C'est 
la guerre! 

In mentioning Charleston churches one becomes in- 
volved in a large matter. In 1801, when St. Mary's, the 
first' Roman Catholic church in the city, was erected, 
there were already eighteen churches in existence, 

298 



UNDER ST. MICHAEL'S CHIMES 

among them the present Huguenot Church, at the corner 
of Church and Queen Streets, which, though a very old 
building, is nevertheless the second Huguenot Church to 
occupy the same site, the first, built in 1687, having been 
destroyed in the great conflagration of 1796, which very 
nearly destroyed St. Philip's, as well. A number of 
the old Huguenot families long ago became Episcopa- 
lians, and the descendants of many of the early French 
settlers of Charleston, buried in the Huguenot church- 
yard, are now parishioners of St. Michael's and St. 
Philip's. The Huguenot Church in Charleston is the 
only church of this denomination in America ; its liturgy 
is translated from the French, and services are held in 
French on the third Sunday of November, January and 
March. A Unitarian Church was established in 181 7, 
as an offshoot of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, the 
old White Meeting House of which (built 1685, used by 
the British as a granary, during the Revolution, and 
torn down 1806) gave Meeting Street its name. Early 
in the history of the Unitarian Church, the home of 
which was a former Presbyterian Church building, in 
Archdale Street, Dr. Samuel Oilman, a young minister 
from Gloucester, Massachusetts, became its pastor. 
This was the same Dr. Oilman who wrote "Fair Har- 
vard." 

In only one instance did the letters of introduction we 
sent out produce a response of the kind one would not 
be surprised at receiving in some rushing city of the 

299 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

North: a telephone call. A lady, not a native Charles- 
tonian, but one who has lived actively about the world, 
rang us up, bade us welcome, and invited us to dinner. 

But she was a very modern sort of lady, as witness 
not only her use of the telephone — an instrument which 
seems in Charleston almost an anachronism ; as, for that 
matter, the automobile does, too — but her dinner hour, 
which was eight o'clock. Very few Charleston families 
dine at night. Dinner invitations are usually for three, 
or perhaps half-past three or four, in the afternoon, and 
there is a light supper in the evening. I judge that this 
custom holds also in some other cities of the region, for 
I remember calling at the office of a large investment 
company in Wilmington, North Carolina, to find it 
wearing, at three in the afternoon, the deserted look of 
a New York office between twelve and one o'clock. 
Every one had gone home to dinner. Mr. W. D. How- 
ells, in his charming essay on Charleston, makes men- 
tion of this matter : 

"The place," he says, "has its own laws and usages, 
and does not trouble itself to conform to those of other 
aristocracies. In London the best society dines at eight 
o'clock, and in Madrid at nine, but in Charleston it dines 
at four. ... It makes morning calls as well as after- 
noon calls, but as the summer approaches the midday 
heat must invite rather to the airy leisure of the veran- 
das, and the cool quiescence of interiors darkened 
against the fly in the morning and the mosquito at night- 
fall." 

300 









St. Philip's is the more beautiful for the open space before it, and the graceful 
outward bend of Church Street in deference to the projecting portico 



UNDER ST. MICHAEL'S CHIMES 

The household fly is a year-round resident of Charles- 
ton, by grace of a climate which permits — barely per- 
mits, at its coldest — the use of the open surrey as a 
public vehicle in all seasons. Sometimes, during a win- 
ter cold-snap, when a ride in a surrey is not a pleasant 
thing to contemplate, when residents of old mansions 
have shut themselves into a room or two heated by grate 
fires, then the fly seems to have disappeared, but let the 
cold abate a little and out he comes again like some 
rogue who, after brief and spurious penance, resumes 
the evil of his ways. 

The stranger going to a humble Charleston house will 
find on the gate a coiled spring at the end of which hangs 
a bell. By touching the spring and causing the bell 
to jingle he makes his presence known. The larger 
houses have upon their gates bell-pulls or buttons which 
cause bells to ring within. This is true of all houses 
which have front gardens. The garden gate consti- 
tutes, by custom, a barrier comparable in a degree with 
the front door of a Northern house; a usage arising, 
doubtless, out of the fact that almost all important 
Charleston houses have not only gardens, but first and 
second story galleries, and that in hot weather these 
galleries become, as it were, exterior rooms, in which no 
small part of the family life goes on. Many Charleston 
houses have their gardens to the rear, and themselves 
abut upon the sidewalk. Calling at such houses, you 
ring at what seems to be an ordinary front door, but 
when the door is opened you find yourself entering not 

301 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

upon a hall, but upon an exterior gallery running to the 
full depth of the house, down which you walk to the 
actual house door. In still other houses — and this is 
true of some of the most notable mansions of the city, 
including the Pringle, Huger, and Rhett houses — ad- 
mittance is by a street door of the normal sort, opening 
upon a hall, and the galleries and gardens are at the side 
or back, the position of the galleries in relation to the 
house depending upon what point of the compass the 
house faces, the desirable thing being to get the breezes 
which are prevalently from the southwest and the west- 
ward. 

Charleston is very definitely two things: It is old, 
and it is a city. 

There is the story of a young lady who asked a 
stranger if he did not consider it a unique town. 

He agreed that it was, and inquired whether she knew 
the derivation of the word ''unique." 

When she replied negatively he informed her that the 
word came from the Latin unus, meaning "one," and 
equus, meaning "a horse" ; otherwise "a one-horse town." 

This tale, however, is a libel, for despite the general 
superstition of chambers of commerce to the contrary, 
the estate of cityhood is not necessarily a matter of 
population nor yet of commerce. That is one of the 
things which, if we were unaware of it before, we may 
learn from Charleston. Charleston is not great in 
population ; it is not very great, as seaports go, in trade. 

302 



UNDER ST. MICHAEL'S CHIMES 

Were cities able to talk with one another as men can, 
and as foolishly as men often do, I have no doubt that 
many a hustling middle-western city would patronize 
Charleston, precisely as a parvenue might patronize a 
professor of astronomy; nevertheless, Charleston has a 
stronger, deeper-rooted city entity than all the cities of 
the Middle West rolled into one. This is no exaggera- 
tion. Where modern American cities strive to be like 
one another, Charleston strives to be like nothing what- 
soever. She does not have to strive to be something. 
She is something. She understands what most other 
American cities do not understand, and what, in view of 
our almost unrestricted immigration laws, it seems the 
National Government cannot be made to understand: 
namely, that mere numbers do not count for everything ; 
that there is the matter of quality of population to 
be considered. Therefore, though Charleston's white 
population is no greater than that of many a place which 
would own itself frankly a small town, Charleston 
knows that by reason of the character of its population 
it is a great city. And that is precisely the case. 
Charleston people are city people par excellence. They 
have the virtues of city people, the vices of city people, 
and the civilization and sophistication of those who re- 
side in the most aristocratic capitals. For that is an- 
other thing that Charleston is; it is unqualifiedly tht 
aristocratic capital of the United States ; the last strong- 
hold of a unified American upper class ; the last remain- 
ing American city in which Madeira and Port and 

303 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

noblesse oblige are fully and widely understood, and are 
employed according to the best traditions. 

I have been told of a lady who remarked that Charles- 
ton was "the biggest little place" she ever saw. I say 
the same. The littleness of the place, it is sometimes 
pointed out, is expressed by the "vast cousinship" which 
constitutes Charleston society, but it is to my mind ex- 
pressed much better in the way bicyclists leave their 
machines leaning against the curb at the busiest parts of 
main shopping streets.. Its bigness, upon the other 
hand, is expressed by the homes from which some of 
those bicyclists come, by the cultivation which exists in 
those homes, and has existed there for generations, by 
the amenities of life as they are comprehended and ob- 
served, by the wealth of the city's tradition and the 
richness of its background. Nor is that background a 
mere arras of recollection. It exists everywhere in the 
wood and brick and stone of ancient and beautiful build- 
ings, in iron grilles and balconies absolutely unrivaled 
in any other American city, and equaled only in Euro- 
pean cities most famous for their artistry in wrought 
iron. It exists also in venerable institutions — the first 
orphanage established in the United States ; the William 
Enston Home; the Public Library, one of the first and 
now one of the best libraries in the country; the art 
museum, the St. Cecilia Society, and various old clubs. 
More intimately it exists within innumerable old homes, 
which are treasure-houses of fine old English and early 
American furniture and of portraits — portraits by 

304 











V' 




<u o 



■as 



UNDER ST. MICHAEL'S CHIMES 

Sir Joshua, by Stuart, Copley, Trumbull, and most of 
the. other portrait painters who painted from the time 
the Colonies began to become civilized to the time of the 
Civil War — among them S. F. B. Morse, who, I believe 
it is not generally known, made a considerable reputa- 
tion as a portrait painter, in Charl-eston, before he made 
himself a world figure by inventing the telegraph. 

Even without seeing these private treasures the vis- 
itor to Charleston will see enough to convince him that 
Charleston is indeed ''unique" — though not in the sense 
implied in the story — that it is the most intimately beau- 
tiful city upon the American continent. 

To call Charleston ''unique," and immediately there- 
after to liken it to other places may seem paradoxical. 
These likenesses are, however, evanescent. It is not 
that Charleston is actually like other places, but that 
here in a church building, there in an old tile roof, 
w^rought iron gate, or narrow cobbled street, the visitor 
will find himself delicately reminded of Old World towns 
and cities. Mr. Howells, for example, found on the 
East Battery a faint suggestion of Venetian palaces, and 
in the doorway and gates of the Smyth house, in Legare 
Street, I was struck, also, with a Venetian suggestion so 
strange and subtle that I could not quite account for it. 
At night some of the old narrow streets, between Meet- 
ing Street and Bay, made me think of streets in the old 
part of Paris, on the left bank of the Seine; or again I 
would stop before an ancient brick house which was 
Flemish, or which — in the case of houses diagonally op- 

305 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

posite St. Philip's Church — exampled the rude architec- 
ture of an old French village, stucco walls colored and 
chipped, red tile roof and all. The busy part of King 
Street, on a Saturday night when the fleet was in, made 
me think of Havana, and the bluejackets seemed to me, 
for the moment, to be American sailors in a foreign 
port; and once, on the same evening's walk, when I 
chanced to look to the westward across Marion Square, 
I found myself transported to the central place of a Bel- 
gian city, with a slope-shouldered church across the way 
masquerading as a hotel de ville, and the sidewalk lights 
at either side figuring In my Imagination as those of 
pleasant terrace cafes. So It was always. The very 
hotel In which we stayed — the Charleston — is like no 
other hotel in the United States, though It has about it 
something which caused me to think of the old Southern, 
in St. Louis. Still, it is not like the Southern. It is 
more like some old hotel in a provincial city of France — 
large and white, with a pleasing unevenness of floor, 
and, best of all, a great Inner court which. In provincial 
France, might be a remise, but Is here a garden. If I 
mistake not, carriages and coaches did in earlier times 
drive through the arched entrance, now the main door- 
way, and into this courtyard, where passengers alighted 
and baggage was taken down. The Planter's Hotel, 
now a ruin, opposite the Huguenot Church, antedates all 
others In the city, and used to be the fashionable gather- 
ing place for wealthy Carolinians and their families who 
came to Charleston annually for the racing season. 

306 



UNDER ST. MICHAEL'S CHIMES 

The fact that Charleston has a rather important art 
museum and that its Hbrary is one of the four oldest 
town libraries in the country, no less than the fact that 
the city was, in its day, a great racing center, contribute 
to an understanding of the spirit of the place. The 
present Charleston Library is not the first public library 
started in the city. Not by any means! For it was 
founded as late as 1748, and the original public library 
of Charleston was the first one of the kind in the coun- 
try, having been started about the beginning of the i8th 
century. Old records of this library still exist, showing 
that citizens voted so many skins to its support. Prob- 
ably the most valuable possession of the present library 
are its files of Charleston newspapers, dating from 1732 
to the present time, including three files covering the 
War of 181 2, and two covering the Civil War. These 
files are consulted by persons from all over the United 
States, for historical material. The library has recently 
moved into a good modern building. In the old build- 
ing there was a separate entrance at the back for ladies, 
and it is only lately that ladies have been allow^ed full 
membership in the Library Society, and have entered by 
the front door. The former custom, I suppose, repre- 
sented certain old-school sentiments as to "woman's 
place" such as I find expressed in ''Reminiscences of 
Charleston," by Charles Eraser, published in 1854. De- 
clares Mr. Eraser: 

The ambition for literary distinction is now very prevalent with 
the sex. But without any disposition to undervalue their claims, 

307 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

whenever I hear of a female traveler clambering the Alps, or de- 
scribing the classic grounds of Greece and Italy, publishing her 
musings in the holy land, or revealing the mysteries of the 
harem, I cannot but think that for every success obtained some 
appropriate duty has been neglected. 

I except the poetess, for hers are the effusions of the heart and 
the imagination, prompted by nature and uttered because they are 
irrepressible. Many females travel for the purpose of writing 
and publishing books — whilst Mrs. Heman's, Mrs. Osgood's, and 
Mrs. Sigourney's volumes may be regarded as grateful offerings 
to the muse in return for her inspiration. 

It is hard not to be irritated, even now, with the man 
who wrote that, especially in view of the fact that the 
two most interesting books to come out of the Carolinas 
of recent years are both by women: one of them being 
"Charleston — the Place and the People," by Mrs. St. 
Julien Ravenel, a volume any chapter of which is worth 
the whole of Mr. Eraser's "Reminiscences," and the 
other "A Woman Rice-Planter," by "Patience Penning- 
ton," otherwise Mrs. John Julius Pringle (nee Alston), 
who lives on her plantation near Georgetown, South 
Carolina. 

The Carolina Jockey Club subscribed regularly to the 
support of the library, and now that that club is no more, 
its chief memorial may be said to rest there. This club 
was probably the first racing club in the country, and it 
is interesting to note that the old cement pillars from 
the Washington Race Course at Charleston were taken, 
when that course was abandoned, and set up at the Bel- 
mont Park course, near New York. 

308 



UNDER ST. MICHAEL'S CHIMES 

The turf history of CaroHna began (according to the 
''South CaroHna Gazette," dated February i, 1734) in 
that same year, on the first Tuesday in February. One 
of the prizes was a saddle and bridle valued at £20. 
The riders were white men and the course was a green 
at Charleston Neck, near where the lower depot of the 
South Carolina Railroad now stands. In a "History of 
the Turf in South Carolina," which I found in the 
library, I learned that Mr. Daniel Ravenel bred fine 
horses on his plantation, Wantoot, in St. John's Parish, 
as early as 1761, that Mr. Frank Huger had imported 
an Arabian horse, and that many other gentlemen were 
importing British running horses, and were engaged in 
breeding. The book refers to the old York Course, later 
called the New Market Course. A long search did not, 
however, enable me to establish the date on which the 
Jockey Club was founded. It was clearly a going insti- 
tution in 1792, for under date of Wednesday, February 
15, in that year, I found the record of a race for the 
Jockey Club Purse — "four mile-heats — weight for age 
— won by Mr. Lynch's Foxhunter, after a well contested 
race of four heats, beating Mr. Sumter's Ugly, who won 
the first heat; Col. Washington's Rosctta, who won the 
second heat; Capt. Alston's Betsy Baker," etc., etc. 

The Civil War practically ended the Jockey Club, 
though a feeble effort was, for a time, made to carry it 
on. In 1900 the club properties and the funds remain- 
ing in the club treasury were transferred as an endow- 
ment to the Charleston Library Society. The proceeds 

309 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

from this endowment add to the hbrary's income by 
about two thousand dollars annually. Other items of 
interest in connection with the Carolina Jockey Club are 
that Episcopal Church conventions used to be held in 
Charleston during the racing season, so that the attend- 
ing parsons might take in the races ; that the Jockey Club 
Ball used to be the great ball of the Charleston season, 
as the second St. Cecilia Ball became later and now is; 
that the Charleston Club, a most delightful club, founded 
in 1852, was an outgrowth of the Jockey Club; and that 
the Jockey Club's old Sherries, Ports and Madeiras went 
to New York where they were purchased by Delmonico 
— among: them a Calderon de la Barca Madeira of 1848, 
and a Peter Domecq Sherry of 181 8. 

Mr. S. A. Nies, one of the old employees of Del- 
monico's, tells me that the Calderon de la Barca of the 
above mentioned year is all gone, but that Delmonico's 
still has a few bottles of the same wine of the vintage 
of 1851. 

"This wine," Mr. Nies said, "is listed on our wine 
card at $6.00 per bottle. It is not the best Madeira that 
we have, although it is a very fine one. Recently we 
served a bottle of Thompson's Auction Madeira, of 
which the year is not recognizable on the label, but which 
to my knowledge was an old wine forty years ago. 
This wine brought $25.00 a bottle and was worth it. 

"The Peter Domecq Sherry of 18 18 does not figure 
on our wine list as we have but a few bottles left. It 
is $20.00 a bottle. 

310 



UNDER ST. MICHAEL'S CHIMES 

'The prices brought to-day by old Madeiras and Sher- 
ries do not represent their real values. One has but to 
look at the compound interest of savings banks to realize 
that these wines should be selling at four times the price 
they are; but unfortunately, since the advent of Scotch 
whisky in the American market, the American palate 
seems to have deteriorated, and if the wines were listed 
at the price they ought to bring, we could not sell them. 
As it is, the demand for the very rare old wines is irregu- 
lar and infrequent. We keep them principally to pre- 
serve our reputation; not for the money there is in it." 



311 



CHAPTER XXIX 
HISTORY AND ARISTOCRACY 

The cool shade of aristocracy . . . 

—Sir W. F. P. Napier. 

JUST now, when we are being unpleasantly awak- 
ened to the fact that our vaunted American melt- 
ing-pot has not been doing its work; when some 
of us are perhaps wondering whether the quality of 
metal produced by the crucible will ever be of the best; 
it is comforting to reflect that a city whose history, tra- 
ditions and great names are so completely involved with 
Americanism in its highest forms, a city we think of as 
ultra-American, is peculiarly a melting-pot product. 

The original Charleston colonists were English and 
Irish, sent out under Colonel Sayle, in 1669, by the 
Lords Proprietors, to whom Charles II had granted a 
tract of land in the New World, embracing the present 
States of Georgia and North and South Carolina. 
These colonists touched at Port Royal — where the 
Marine Barracks now are (and ought not to be) — but 
settled on the west side of the Ashley River, across from 
where Charleston stands. It was not until 1680 that 
they transferred their settlement to the present site 
of the city, naming the place Charles Town in honor 

312 



HISTORY AND ARISTOCRACY 

of the King. In 1671 the colony contained 263 men 
able to bear arms, 69 women and 59 children. In 1674, 
when New York was taken by the English from the 
Dutch, a number of the latter moved down to the Caro- 
lina colony. French Protestants had, at that time, 
already begun to arrive, and more came after the rev- 
ocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685. In 1680 Ger- 
mans came. By 1684 there were four Huguenot settle- 
ments in Carolina. In 1696 a Quaker was governor 
for a short time, and in the same year a body of New 
Englanders arrived from Dorchester, Massachusetts, 
establishing a town which they called Dorchester, near 
the present town of Summerville, a few miles from 
Charleston. At that time a number of Scottish immi- 
grants had already arrived, though more came in 171 5 
and 1745, after the defeat of the Highlanders. From 
1730 to 1750 new colonists came from Switzerland, Hol- 
land and Germany. As early as 1740 there were 
several Jewish families in Charleston, and some of 
the oldest and most respected Jewish families in the 
United States still reside there. Also, when the English 
drove the Acadians from Canada in 1755, twelve hun- 
dred of them immigrated to Carolina. By 1790, then, 
the city had a population of a little more than 15,000, 
which was about half the number of inhabitants then 
contained in the city of New York. In the case of 
Charleston, however, more than one half her people, at 
that time, were negroes, slavery having been introduced 
by Sir John Yeamans, an early British governor. By 

313 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

1850 the city had about 20,000 white citizens and 23,000 
blacks, and by 1880 some 7,500 more, of which additional 
number two thirds were negroes. The present popula- 
tion is estimated at 65,000, which makes Charleston a 
place of about the size of Rockford, Illinois, Sioux City, 
Iowa, or Covington, Kentucky; but as, in the case of 
Charleston, more than half this number is colored, 
Charleston is, if the white population only is considered, 
a place of approximately 30,000 inhabitants, or, roughly 
speaking, about the size of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., or Colo- 
rado Springs, Colorado. 

In area, also, Charleston is small, covering less than 
four square miles. This is due to the position of the 
city on a peninsula formed by the convergence and con- 
fluence of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, which meet at 
Charleston's beautiful Battery precisely as the Hudson 
River and the East River meet at the Battery in New 
York. The shape of Charleston, indeed, greatly resem- 
bles that of Manhattan Island, and though her harbor 
and her rivers are neither so large nor so deep as those 
of the port of New York, they are altogether adequate 
to a considerable maritime activity. 

The Charleston Chamber of Commerce (which, like 
everything else in Charleston dates from long ago, hav- 
ing been founded in 1748) quotes President Taft as 
calling this port the most convenient one to Panama — 
a statement which the New Orleans Chamber of Com- 
merce is in position to dispute. The fact remains, how- 

314 



HISTORY AND ARISTOCRACY 

ever, that Charleston's position on the map justifies the 
Chamber of Commerce's alliterative designation of the 
place as "The Plumb-line Port to Panama." This is so 
true that if Charleston should one day be shaken loose 
from its moorings by an earthquake — something not un- 
known there — and should fall due south upon the map, 
it would choke up the mouth of the Canal, were not 
Cuba interposed, to catch the debris. 

Before the Civil War, Charleston was the greatest cot- 
ton shipping port of the country, and it still handles 
large amounts of cotton and rice. Until a few years ago 
South Carolina was the chief rice producing State in 
the Union, and history records that the first rice planted 
in the Carolinas, if not in the country, was secured and 
sown by an early governor of Carolina, Thomas Smith, 
who died in 1694. It may be noted in passing that this 
Thomas Smith bore the title "Landgrave," the Lords 
Proprietors, in their plan of government for the colony 
— which, by the way, was drawn up by the philosopher 
Locke — having provided for a colonial nobility with 
titles. The titles "Baron" and "Landgrave" were he- 
reditary in several Charleston families, and constitute, 
so far as I know, the only purely American titles of 
nobility that ever existed. Descendants of the old 
Landgraves still reside in Charleston, and In at least one 
Instance continue to use the word "Landgrave" in con- 
nection with the family name. 

The prosperity of Charleston since the Civil War has 

315 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

depended more, perhaps, than on any other single prod- 
uct, upon the trade in phosphate, large deposits of which 
underlie this region. 

The real wonder of Charleston, the importance of the 
place among American cities, cannot, however, be said 
to have resulted primarily from commerce (though her 
commerce is growing), or from greatness of population 
(though Charleston is the metropolis of the Carolinas), 
but is involved with matters of history, tradition and 
beauty. The mantle of greatness was assumed by this 
city in colonial times, and has never been laid aside. 
Among the most distinguished early Americans were 
many Charlestonians, and in not a few instances the old 
blood still endures there, and even the old names: such 
names as Washington, Pinckney, Bull, Pringle, Rut- 
ledge, Middleton, Drayton, Alston, Huger, Agassiz, 
Ravenel, Izard, Gadsden, Rhett, Calhoun, Read, De 
Saussure, Lamar and Brawley, to mention but a few. 

Charleston's early history is rich in pirate stories of 
the most thrilling moving-picture variety. Blackbeard, 
Stede Bonnet and other disciples of the Jolly Roger 
preyed upon Charleston shipping. Bonnet once held a 
Mr. Samuel Wragg of Charleston prisoner aboard his 
ship threatening to send his head to the city unless the 
unfortunate man should be ransomed — the demand be- 
ing for medicines of various kinds. Colonel Rhett, of 
Charleston, captured Bonnet and his ship after a savage 
fight, but Bonnet soon after escaped from the city in 

316 




"^ 






In the doorway and gates of the Smyth house, in Legare Street, I was struck 
with a Venetian sugsrestion 



HISTORY AND ARISTOCRACY 

woman's clothing. Still later he was retaken, hanged, 
as he deserved to be, and buried along with forty of his 
band at a point now covered by the Battery Garden, that 
exquisite little park at the tip of the city, which is the 
favorite promenade of Charlestonians. In another 
fight which occurred just off Charleston bar, a crew of 
citizens under Governor Robert Johnson defeated the 
pirate Richard Worley, who was killed in the action, and 
captured his ship, which, when the hatches were opened 
proved to be full of prisoners, thirty-six of them women. 
Even as late as the period of the War of 1812 — a war 
which did not affect Charleston save in the way of de- 
stroying her shipping and causing poverty and distress 
— a case of brutal piracy is recorded. The daughter of 
Aaron Burr, Theodosia by name, was married to Gover- 
nor Joseph Alston. After her father's trial for high 
treason, when he was disgraced and broken, she tried to 
comfort him, for the two were peculiarly devoted. In- 
tending to visit him she set sail from Charleston for 
New York in a ship which was never heard from again. 
Somewhere I have read a description of the distraught 
father's long vigils at New York, where he would stand 
gazing out to sea long after all hope had been abandoned 
by others. Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel tells us in her charm- 
ing book, that thirty years later an old sailor, dying in a 
village of the North Carolina coast, confessed that he 
had been one of a pirate crew which had captured the 
ship and compelled the passengers to walk the plank. 
This story is also given by Charles Gayarre, who says 

317 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

the pirate chief was none other than Dominick You, 
who fought under Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, 
and is buried in that city. The husband and father 
of Mrs. Alston were spared the ghastly tale, Mrs. Ra- 
venel says, since both were already in their graves 
when the sailor's deathbed confession solved the mys- 
tery. 

In the Revolution, Charleston played an important 
part. Men of Charleston were, of course, among the 
signers of the Declaration of Independence. Charles 
Cotesworth Pinckney, who gave us the immortal maxim : 
''Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!" 
who was on Washington's staff, was later Ambassador 
to France and president-general of the Sons of the Cin- 
cinnati, was a Charlestonian of the Charlestonians, and 
lies buried in St. Michael's. Such Revolutionary names 
as Marion, Laurens, William Washington, Greene, 
Hampton, Moultrie and Sumter are associated with the 
place, and two of these are reechoed in the names of 
those famous forts in Charleston harbor on which at- 
tention was fixed at the outbreak of the Civil War: 
Moultrie and Sumter — the latter, target for the first 
shot fired in the conflict. 

Nearly thirty 5'^ears before the Civil War, Charleston 
had distinguished herself in the arts of peace by produc- 
ing the first locomotive tried in the United States, and by 
constructing the first consecutive hundred miles of rail- 
road ever built in the world, and now, with the War, 
she distinguished herself by initiating other mechanical 

318 



HISTORY AND ARISTOCRACY 

devices of very different character — a semi-submersible 
torpedo boat and the first submarine to torpedo a hos- 
tile war vessel. True, David Bushnell of Connecticut 
did construct a crude sort of submarine during the Rev- 
olutionary War, and succeeded in getting under a Brit- 
ish ship with the machine, but he was unable to fasten 
his charge of powder and his effort consequently failed. 
Robert Fulton also experimented with submarines, or 
"plunging boats" as he called them, and was encouraged 
for a time by Napoleon I. The little David of the Con- 
federate navy is sometimes referred to as the first sub- 
marine but the David was not actually an underwater 
boat, but a torpedo boat which could run awash, with her 
funnels and upper works slightly out of water. She 
was a cigar-shaped vessel thirty-three feet long, built of 
wood, propelled by steam, and carrying her torpedo on 
a pole, forward. Dr. St. Julien Ravenel of Charleston 
and Captain Theodore Stoney devised the craft, and she 
was built by funds subscribed by Charleston merchants. 
In command of Lieutenant W. T. Glassell, C.S.N. , and 
with three other men aboard, she torpedoed the United 
States ship Nezv Ironsides, flagship of the fleet blockad- 
ing Charleston. The New Ironsides was crippled, but 
not lost. After this United States vessels blockading 
Charleston protected themselves with booms. This re- 
sulted in the construction of an actual undersea torpedo 
boat, the Hnnlcy. This extraordinary vessel has been 
spoken of as having had the appearance of a huge iron 
coffin, as well as the attributes of one, for she proved a 

319 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

death-trap for successive crews on three trial trips. As 
there were no electric motors or gasoline engines in those 
days, she was run by hand, eight men crowded together 
turning a crank-shaft which operated her propeller. 
After repeated sinkings, she was raised, manned by new 
men, and sent forth again. Finally, in Charleston har- 
bor she succeeded in destroying the United States man- 
o'-war Housatonic, but at the same time went down, her- 
self, drowning or suffocating all on board. A memorial 
drinking fountain on the Battery, at the foot of Meeting 
Street, commemorates "the men of the Confederate 
Army and Navy, first in marine warfare to employ tor- 
pedo boats — 1 863-1865." On this memorial are given 
the names of sixteen men who perished in torpedo attacks 
on the blockading fleet, among them Horace L. Hunley, 
set down as inventor of the submarine boat. The 
names of fourteen others who were lost are unknown. 

Lord William Campbell, younger son of the Duke of 
Argyll, was British governor at Charleston when the 
Revolution broke out. He had married a Miss Izard, of 
Charleston, who brought him a dowry of fifty thousand 
pounds, a large sum in those times. Their home was in 
a famous old house which stands on Meeting Street, and 
it was from the back yard of this house that Lord Wil- 
liam fled in a rowboat to a British man-o'-war, when it 
became evident that Charleston was no longer hospitable 
to representatives of the Crown. Later his wife fol- 
lowed him to Great Britain, where they remained. 

320 



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HISTORY AND ARISTOCRACY 

The Pringle House, as it is now called, formerly the 
Brewton house, perhaps the most superb old residence in 
the city, was the headquarters of General Sir Henry 
Clinton, after he had captured Charleston, and was the 
residence of Lord Rawdon, the unpleasant British com- 
mander who succeeded Clinton. Cornwallis lived out- 
side the town at Drayton Hall, which still stands, on the 
Ashley River. After his capture Cornwallis was ex- 
changed for Henry Laurens, a distinguished Charles- 
tonian, who, though he wept over the Declaration of In- 
dependence, was before long president of the Continen- 
tal Congress, and later went to France, where he was 
associated with Benjamin Franklin, John Jay and John 
Adams in negotiating the treaty of peace and independ- 
ence for America. 

Mrs. Ravenel says in her book that Sherman de- 
stroyed all but one of the superb old houses on the 
Ashley River, and when we consider that Sherman's 
troops invested Charleston just before the end of the 
War, and reflect iipon the general's notorious ''careless- 
ness with fire," we have cause for national rejoicing that 
Charleston, with its unmatched buildings and their 
splendid contents, was not laid in ashes, as were Atlanta 
and Columbia. Had Sherman burned Charleston it 
would be hard for even a Yankee to forgive him. 

Even without the aid of the Northern general, the 
city has been able to furnish disastrous conflagrations 
of her own, over a period of two centuries and more, 
and I find in the quaint reminiscences of Charles 

321 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Eraser, already alluded to, a lamentation that, because 
of fires, many of the old landmarks have disap- 
peared, and the city is "losing its look of picturesque 
antiquity." To make matters worse, there came, in 
1886, an earthquake, rendering seven eighths of the 
houses uninhabitable until repairs aggregating some mil- 
lions of dollars had been made. Up to the time of the 
earthquake the old mansion from which Lord William 
Campbell fled at the beginning of the Revolution, was 
adorned by a battlemented roof. It is recorded that 
when the shock came, an Englishman was in the house, 
and that in his eagerness to get outdoors he pushed 
others aside. As he reached the front steps, however, 
the battlements came crashing down. He was the one 
person from that house who perished, and his only mon- 
ument is the patch of comparatively new stone where the 
broken steps have been repaired. 

My companion and I achieved entrance to one of the 
famous old Charleston houses which we had been par- 
ticularly anxious to see, through the kindness of a lady 
to whom we had a letter of introduction, who happened 
to be a relative of the owner of the house. 

It seems necessary to explain, at this juncture, that in 
Charleston, many proper names of foreign origin have 
been corrupted in pronunciation. A few examples will 
suffice: The Dutch name Vanderhorst, conspicuous in 
the early annals of the city, has come to be pronounced 
"Van-Dross"; Legare, the name of another distin- 

322 



HISTORY AND ARISTOCRACY 

guished old family, commemorated in the name of Le- 
gare Street, is pronounced "Legree"; De Saussure has 
become "Dess-a-sore," with the accent on the first syl- 
lable, and Prioleau is called *Tray-low." 

I was unaware of these matters when my companion 
and I visited the ancient house I speak of. Though I 
had heard the name of the proprietor of the mansion 
spoken many times, and recognized it as a distinguished 
Charleston name, I had never seen it written ; however, 
without having given the matter much thought, I had, 
unfortunately, reached my own conclusions as to how 
it was spelled. Still more unfortunately, while I was 
delighting in the drawing-room of that wonderful old 
house, with the portraits of ladies in powdered hair and 
men in cocked hats and periwigs looking down upon 
me from the walls, I was impelled to reassure myself 
as to the spelling of the name. Let us assume that the 
name sounded like ''Bowfee." That was not it but it 
will suffice for illustration. 

"I suppose," I said to our charming cicerone, ''that the 
family name is spelled 'B-o-w-f-e-e'?" 

I had no sooner spoken than I realized, with a sud- 
den access of horror what I had done. In guessing I 
had sinned, but in guessing wrong I had ruined myself. 
All this came to me instantly and positively, as by a 
psychic message of unparalleled definiteness from the 
dead ancestors whose portraits hung upon the paneling. 
It was as though they had joined in a great ghostly shout 
of execration, which was the more awful because it was 

323 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

a silent shout that jarred upon the senses rather than 
the ear drums. Then, .before the lady replied, while 
the sound of my own voice saying "B-o-w-f-e-e" 
seemed to reverberate through the apartment, I sud- 
denly comprehended the spirit of Charleston: under- 
stood that, compared with Charleston, Boston is as a 
rough mining camp, while New York hardly exists at 
all, being a mere miasma of vulgarity. 

There was a long silence, in which the lady to whom 
I had spoken gazed from the window at the rainy twi- 
light. Her silence, I am persuaded, was not intended to 
rebuke me; she was not desirous of crushing me; she 
was merely stunned. Indeed, when at last she spoke, 
there was in her tone something of gentleness. 

'The name," she said, "is Beaufoy — B-e-a-u-f-o-y. 
It is of Huguenot origin." 

Passionately I wished for an earthquake — one that 
might cause the floor to open beneath me, or the roof to 
fall through and blot me from her sight. How to get 
away? — that was my one thought. To cover my em- 
barrassment, I tried to make small-talk about a medal- 
lion of an Emperor of France, which hung upon the 
paneling. The lady said it had been given to an an- 
cestor of the Beaufoys by the Emperor himself. That, 
for some reason, seemed to make things rather worse. 
I wished I had not dragged the Emperor into the con- 
versation. 

'Tt is getting dark," I said. "It is time we were go- 
ing." 

324 



HISTORY AND ARISTOCRACY 

This the lady did not dispute. 

Of our actual farewells and exit from that house, I 
remember not a detail, save that, as we departed, I knew 
that we should never see this lady again; that for her 
I no longer existed, and that in my downfall I had 
dragged my companion with me. The next thing I 
definitely recollect is walking swiftly up Meeting Street 
beside him, in the rain and darkness of late afternoon. 
All the way back to the hotel we strode side by side in 
pregnant silence; neither did we speak as we ascended 
to our rooms. 

Some time later, while I was dressing for dinner, he 
entered my bedchamber. At the moment, as it hap- 
pened, I was putting cuff-links into a dress shirt. With 
this task I busied myself, dreading to look up. In the 
meantime I felt his eyes fixed upon me. When the 
links were in, I delayed meeting his gaze by buttoning 
the little button in one sleeve-vent, above the cuff. 

"Do you mean to say you button those idiotic little 
buttons ?" he demanded. 'T did n't know that anybody 
ever did that !" 

*T don't always," I answered apologetically. 

'T should hope not!" he returned. Then he con- 
tinued: "Do you remember where we are to be taken 
to-morrow?" 

"Yes," I said. "To the Pringle house." 

"Well," said he, "I just came in to ask you, as a 
favor, not to get ofif any fanciful ideas that you may 
have thought up, about the way to spell Pringle." 

325 



CHAPTER XXX 
POLITICS, A NEWSPAPER AND ST. CECILIA 

CHARLESTON is very definitely a part of South 
Carolina. That is not always the case with a 
State and its chief city. It is not the case with 
the State and the City of New York. New York City 
has about the same relation to New York State as a 
goldpiece has to a large table-top on one corner of which 
it lies. Charleston, on the other hand, harmonizes into 
its state setting, as a beautiful ancient vase harmonizes 
into the setting afforded by some rare old cabinet. 
Moreover, Charleston's individuality amongst cities is 
more or less duplicated in South Carolina's individuality 
amongst States. South Carolina is a State as definitely 
marked — though in altogether different ways — as Kan- 
sas or California. It is a State that does nothing by 
halves. It has rattlesnakes larger and more venomous 
than other rattlesnakes, and it has twice had the dis- 
graceful Cole Blease, otherwise "To-hell-with-the-Con- 
stitution" Blease, as governor. For senator it has the 
old war-horse Tillman, a man so admired for his power 
that, in our easy-going way, we almost forgive his 
dives into the pork-barrel. Tillman has been to South 
Carolina more or less what the late Senator Hale 
was to his section of New England. Hale grabbed 

326 



CHARLESTON POLITICS 

a navy yard for Kittery, Maine (the Portsmouth 
yard), where there never should have been a navy yard; 
Tilhiian performed a Hke service, under Hke circum- 
stances, for Charleston. Both are purely political yards. 
Naval officers opposed them, but were overridden by poli- 
ticians, as so often happens. For in time of peace the 
army and the navy are political footballs, and it is only 
when war comes that the politicians cease kicking them 
about and cry : ''Now, football, turn into a cannon-ball, 
and save your country and your country's flag!" For 
obviously, if the flag cannot be saved, the politicians will 
be without a ''starry banner" to gesture at and roar 
about. 

Now, of course, with war upon us, any navy yard is a 
blessing, and the Charleston yard is being used, as it 
should be, to the utmost. But in time of peace the yard 
comes in for much criticism from the navy, the conten- 
tion being that it is not favorably located from a stra- 
tegic point of view, and that, owing to bars in the Cooper 
River, up which it is situated, it cannot be entered by 
large ships. The point is also made that while labor is 
cheaper at this yard than at any other, skilled metal- 
workers are hard to get. Friends of the yard contend, 
upon the other hand, that it is desirable because of its 
convenience to the Caribbean Sea, where, according to 
naval theory, this country will some day have to fight a 
battle in defense of the Panama Canal. The Pensacola 
yard, it is pointed out, is exposed and can be bombarded, 
whereas the Charleston yard is far enough inland to be 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

safe from sea attack. As to the channel, it is navigable 
for destroyers and other small craft — though whether it 
would be so to a large destroyer which had been injured 
and was drawing more water than usual, I do not know. 
The practical situation of the navy, with regard to this 
and some of the other political yards, is like that of some 
man who has been left a lot of heterogeneous houses, 
scattered about town, none of them suited to his pur- 
poses, and who is obliged to scatter his family amongst 
them as best he can, or else abandon them and build a 
new house. We have been following the former course, 
and are only now preparing to adopt the latter, by estab- 
lishing a naval base at Norfolk, as mentioned in an 
earlier chapter. 

Charleston politics have been peculiar. Until a few 
years ago the government of the city had long rested in 
the hands of a few old families, among them the Gads- 
dens and the Rhetts. The overthrow of this ancient and 
aristocratic rule by the election to the mayoralty of John 
P. Grace, an alleged "friend of the people," was 
spoken of by the new York ''Sun," as being not a mere 
change in municipal government, but the fall of a 
dynasty which had controlled the city politically, finan- 
cially and socially for a century and a half. Mr. Grace 
may be dismissed with the remark that he supported 
Blease and that he is editor of the recently founded 
Charleston "American," which I have heard called a 
Hearst newspaper, and which certainly wears the Hearst 
look about it. 

328 



CHARLESTON POLITICS 

On January 19, 191 7, this newspaper printed a full 
account of the ball of the St. Cecilia Society, Charles- 
ton's most sacred social organization. Never before in 
the history of the St. Cecilia Society, covering a period 
of a century and a half, had an account of one of its 
balls, and the names of those attending, been printed. 
The publication caused a great stir in the city and re- 
sulted in an editorial, said to have been written by Grace, 
which appeared next day, and which reveals something 
of Charleston tradition and something of Grace, as well. 
It was headed "The Saint Cecilia Ball," and ran as 
follows : 

We carried on yesterday a full account of the famous Saint 
Cecilia Ball. From the foundation of Charleston until the pres- 
ent moment it has been regarded as an unwritten law that the 
annual events of this ancient society shall not be touched upon. 

Of course it was permissible for the thirty-five thousand poor 
white people of Charleston to talk about the Saint Cecilia, and 
to indulge in the thrilling sensation that comes to the proverbial 
cat when she looks at a queen. Some of them, moved by curi- 
osity, even ventured within half a block of the Hibernian Hall 
to observe from afar the gay festivities. 

The press being forbidden to cover Saint Cecilia events, there 
grew up in the vulgar mind weird stories of what went on be- 
hind the scenes. While the Saint Cecilia has enjoyed the happy 
privilege of journalistic silence, it has, therefore, correspond- 
ingly suffered on the tongue of gossip. The truth is that we al- 
ways KNEW that the Saint Cecilia was just about the same as 
every other social collection of human beings — a little gaiety fla- 
vored with a little frivolity; nothing more, nothing less. 

There was a time when this society was the extreme limit of 
social exclusiveness. It was an anachronism on American soil, 

329 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

a matter of pure heredity, the right to membership in which was as 
fixed as Median law, but transcendently above the median hne. 
Now, however, since the society, in keeping with the spirit of 
the age, has relaxed its rules to admit from year to year (if, in- 
deed, only a few now and then) members whose blood is far 
from indigo, we think it perfectly legitimate for the newspaper, 
which represents all classes of people, to invade the quondam 
sanctity of its functions which are now being opened to all 
classes. 

Following this, the editorial quoted from Don Seitz's 
book, telling how the elder James Gordon Bennett was 
in the habit of mocking "events to which he was not in- 
vited," and how, in 1840, he managed to get one of his 
reporters into "Henry I Brevoort's fancy dress ball, the 
social event of the period." The quotation from Mr. 
Seitz's book ends with the following: "A far cry from 
this to 1894, when Ward McAlister, arbiter of the '400' 
at Mrs. Astor's famous ball became a leader on social 
topics for the New York 'World.' It took many years 
for this umbrage at the reporting of social events to wear 
off and make the reporter welcome. Indeed, there is one 
place yet on the map where it is not even now permitted 
to record a social event, though the editors and owners 
of papers may be among those present. That is Charles- 
ton, South Carolina. . . ." 

The Charleston editor then resumes his own reflec- 
tions in this wise : 

We regret to say, and it is the regret of our life, that we were 
not one of the editors present at the Saint Cecilia. This, there- 
fore, reheves us of the implied condition to adhere any longer 

330 



CHARLESTON POLITICS 

to this silly and absurd custom which, in the language of this 
great newspaper man, has made its last stand "on the map" at 
Charleston. We are glad that we have forever nailed, in the 
opinion of one hundred million ordinary people who make the 
American nation, the absurdity that there is any social event so 
sacred, any people so DIFFERENT from the rest of us poor hu- 
man beings, that we dare not speak of them. 

Just why private social events should be, as Mr. Grace 
seems to assume, particularly the property of the press, 
it is somewhat difhcult to explain, unless we do so by 
accepting as fundamental the theory that the press is 
justified in invading personal privacy purely in order to 
pander, on the one hand to the new breed of vulgar rich 
which thrives on "publicity," and on the other, to the 
breed of vulgar poor which enjoys reading that su- 
premest of American inanities, the "society page." 

What Mr. Seitz said in his book as to the reticence of 
Charleston newspapers, where society is concerned, is, 
however, generally true — amazingly so to one who has 
become hardened to the attitude of the metropolitan press 
elsewhere. The society columns of Charleston papers 
hardly ever print the names of the city's real aristocrats, 
and in the past they have gone much farther than this, 
for they have been known to suppress important news 
stories in which prominent citizens were unpleasantly 
involved. It may be added that earthquakes are evi- 
dently classed as members of the aristocracy, since occa- 
sional tremors felt in the city are pointedly ignored by 
the press. Whether or not the paper edited by the fear- 

331 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

less Mr. Grace ignores these manifestations I am unable 
to say. One can easily fancy his taking a courageous 
stand on such a subject as well as upon social matters. 
Indeed, with a few slight changes, his editorial upon 
the St. Cecilia ball, might be made to serve equally well 
after an earthquake shock. He might say : 

The press being forbidden to cover earthquakes, there grew 
up in the vulgar mind weird stories of what went on behind the 
scenes. While the earthquakes have enjoyed the happy privi- 
lege of journaHstic silence, they have, therefore, correspondingly 
suffered on the tongue of gossip. 

He could also make the point that since, "in keeping 
with the spirit of the age," the earthquake shakes people 
"(if indeed only a few of them now and then), whose 
blood is far from indigo, we think it perfectly legitimate 
for the newspaper, which represents ALL classes of peo- 
ple, to invade the quondam sanctity of its functions 
which are now being OPENED to all classes." 

But of course, where the editor of such a paper is 
concerned, there is always the element of natural deli- 
cacy and nicety of feeling to be considered. Mr. Grace 
felt that because he was not present at the St. Cecilia 
ball, he was free to print things about it. An earth- 
quake would not be like the St. Cecilia Society — it would 
not draw the line at Mr. Grace. At a Charleston earth- 
quake he v.'ould undoubtedly be present. The question 
therefore arises: Having been PRESENT, might his 
AMOUR PROPRE make him feel that to REPORT 
the event would not be altogether in GOOD TASTE? 

2>Z^ 



CHARLESTON POLITICS 

The St. Cecilia Society began in 1737 with a concert 
given on St. Cecilia's day, and continued for many years 
to give concerts at which the musicians were both ama- 
teurs and professionals. Josiah Quincy, in his "Jour- 
nal," tells of having attended one of these concerts in 
1773, and speaks of the richness of the men's apparel, 
noting that there were ''many with swords on." 

When, in 1819, difficulty was experienced in obtaining 
performers, it was proposed that a ball be held in place 
of a concert, and by 1822 the society was definitely trans- 
formed from a musical to a dancing organization, which 
it has remained ever since. 

The statement in the "American" editorial that St. 
Cecilia balls have been the subject of scandalous gossip 
is, I believe, quite false, as is also the statement that the 
balls are now "being opened to all classes." 

Mrs. Ravenel in her book tells how the organization 
is run. Members are elected, and all are men, though 
the names of the ladies of a member's household are 
placed on the club list. "Only death or removal from 
the city erases them — change of fortune affects them not 
at all." A man whose progenitors have belonged to the 
society is almost certain of election, though there have 
been cases in which undesirables of good family have 
been blackballed. Two blackballs are sufficient to cause 
the rejection of a candidate. Men who are not of old 
Charleston stock are carefully investigated before they 
can be elected, but of late years not a few such, having 
been considered desirable, have become members. The 

333 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

members elect officers and a board of managers, and 
these have entire control of the society. Three balls are 
given each year, one in January and two in February. 
Until a few years ago the hall in which the balls are given 
was lighted by innumerable candelabra; only lately has 
electricity been used. The society owns its own plate, 
damask, china and glassware, and used to own a good 
stock of wines. Of late years, I believe, wines have not 
been served, the beverage of the evening consisting of 
coffe, hot and iced. The greatest decorum is observed 
at the balls. Young ladies go invariably with chaper- 
ones; following each dance there is a brief promenade, 
whereafter the young ladies are returned to their duen- 
nas — who, if they be Charleston dowagers in perfection, 
usually carry turkey-feather fans. Cards are filled 
months in advance. As lately as the year 191 2 every 
other dance was a square dance; since then, however, I 
believe that square dances have gone the way of candle- 
light. The society has an endowment and membership 
is inexpensive, costing but fifteen dollars a year, includ- 
ing the three balls. This enables young men starting 
in life to be members without going into extravagance, 
and is in accord with the best social tradition of Charles- 
ton, where the difference between an aristocracy and a 
plutocracy is well understood. Most of the rules of the 
organization are unwritten. One is that men shall not 
smoke on the premises during a ball ; another is that di- 
vorced persons shall not be members or guests of the 
society. In this respect the St. Cecilia Society may be 

334 



CHARLESTON POLITICS 

said, in effect, to be applying, socially, the South Carolina 
law; for South Carolina is the only State in the Union 
in which divorces are not granted for any cause what- 
soever. 

This reminds me that the State has an anti-tipping 
law. The Pullman porter is required to hang up copies 
of the law in his car when it enters South Carolina, and 
copies of it are displayed on the doors of hotel bedrooms. 
The penalty for giving or receiving a tip is a fine of from 
ten to one hundred dollars, or thirty days in jail. Per- 
haps the law is observed. I know, at least, that no one 
offered me a tip while I was in that State. 

The old grandees of Charleston were usually sent to 
Oxford or Cambridge for an education and English tra- 
dition still remains, I fancy, the foundation for what 
Charleston social life is to-day. I thought at first that 
Charlestonians spoke like the English, but later came to 
the conclusion that there is in the pronunciation of some 
of them a quality resembling a very faint brogue — a 
brogue such as might be possessed by a cultivated Irish- 
man who had moved to England in his boyhood, and had 
been educated there. The 'Vanishing y" of tidewater 
Virginia is also used by some Charlestonians, I am told, 
though I do not remember hearing it. 

Generalizations on the subject of dialectic peculiarities 
are dangerous, as I have good reason to know. Natu- 
rally, not all Charlestonians speak alike. I should say, 
however, that the first a in the words 'Tapa" and 

335 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

"Mama" is frequently given a short sound, as a in 
"hat" ; also that many one-syllable words are strung out 
into two. For instance, "eight" is heard as "ay-et" 
("ay" as in "gray"); "where" as "whey-uh," or 
"way-uh," and "hair" as "hay-uh." "Why ?" sometimes 
sounds like "Woi?" Such words as "calm" and "palm" 
are sometimes given the short a: "cam" and "pam" 
— which, of course, occurs elsewhere, too. The name 
"Ralph" is pronounced as "Rafe" (a as in "rate") — 
which I believe is Old English; and the names "Saun- 
ders" and "Sanders" are pronounced exactly alike, both 
being called "Sanders." Tomatoes are sometimes called 
"tomatters." Two dishes I never heard of before are 
"Hopping John," which is rice cooked with peas, and 
"Limping Kate," which is some other rice combination. 
What we, in the North, call an "ice-cream freezer" be- 
comes in Charleston an "ice-cream churn." "Good 
morning" is the salutation up to three p. m., whereas in 
other parts of the South "Good evening" is said for the 
Northern "Good afternoon." Charlestonians speak of 
being "parrot-toed" — not "pigeon-toed." Where, in the 
North, we would ask a friend, "How are things out your 
way?" a Charlestonian may inquire, "How are things 
out your side?" The expression "going out" means to 
go to St. Cecilia Balls, and I have been told that it is 
never used in any other way. That is, if a lady is asked : 
"Are you going out this winter?" it means definitely, 
"Are you going to the St. Cecilia balls?" If you heard 
it said that some one was "on Mount Pleasant," you 

336 



CHARLESTON POLITICS 

might suppose that Mount Pleasant was an island; but 
it is not ; it is a village on the mainland across the Cooper 
River. And what is to me one of the most curious ex- 
pressions I ever heard is ''do don't," as when a lady 
called to her daughter, ''Martha, do don't slam that door 
again !" 

How generally these peculiarities crop out in the 
speech of Charleston I cannot say. It occurs to me, 
however, that, assembled and catalogued in this way, 
they may create the idea that slovenly English is gen- 
erally spoken in the city. If so they give an impression 
which I should not wish to convey, since Charleston has 
no more peculiarities of language than New York or 
Boston, and not nearly so many as a number of other 
cities. Cultivated Charlestonians have, moreover, the 
finest voices I have heard in any American city. 



337 



CHAPTER XXXI 
"GULLA" AND THE BACK COUNTRY 

THE most extraordinary negro dialect I know of 
is the "gulla" (sometimes spelled "gullah") of 
the rice plantation negroes of South Carolina 
and of the islands off the South Carolina and Georgia 
coast. I believe that the region of Charleston is head- 
quarters for "gulla niggers," though I have heard the 
argot spoken as far south as Sepeloe Island, off the town 
of Darien, Georgia, near the Florida line. Gulla is such 
an extreme dialect as to be almost a language by itself. 
Whence it came I do not know, but I judge that it is a 
combination of English with the primitive tongues of 
African tribes, just as the dialect of old Creole negroes, 
in Louisiana, is a combination of African tribal tongues 
with French. 

A Charleston lady tells me that negroes on different 
rice plantations — even on adjoining plantations — speak 
dialects which differ somewhat, and I know of my own 
knowledge that thick gulla is almost incomprehensible 
to white persons who have not learned, by long practice, 
to understand it. 

A lady sent a gulla negro with a message to a friend. 
This is the message as it was delivered: 

338 



"GULLA" AND TiiE BACK COUNTRY 

"Missis sell all dem turrah folk done come shum. 
Enty you duh gvvine come shum?" (To get the gulla 
effect the sounds should be uttered very rapidly. ) 

Translated, this means: "Mistress says all them other 
folks have come to see her. Are n't you coming to see 
her?" 

*'Shum" is a good gulla word. It means all kinds of 
things having to do with seeing — to sec Jicr, to see him, 
to see it. Thus, "You shum, enty?" may mean. You 
see hhn — her — or it? or You see what he — she — or it — 
is doing, or has done? For gulla has no genders and 
no tenses. "Enty" is a general question: Aren't you? 
Didn't you? Isn't it? etc. Another common g"ulla 
word is "Buckra" which means a zvhite man of tlie 
upper chiss, in contradistinction to a poor white. T have 
known a negro to refer to "de frame o' de bud," mean- 
ing- the carcass, or frame, of a fowl. "Ay ain' day" 
means "They are n't (ain't) there." 

A friend of mine who resided at Bluffton, South 
Carolina, has told me of an old gulla fisherman who 
spoke in parables. 

A lady would ask him : "Have you any fish to-day ?" 
To which, if replying afiirmatively, he would answer: 
"Missis, de gate open"; meaning, "The door (of the 
'car,' or fish-box) is open to you." If he had no fish he 
would reply: "Missis, ebb-tide done tack (take) crick" ; 
signifying: "The tide has turned and it is too late to go 
to catch fish." This old man called whiskv "muho-undv 
smash," the term evidently derived from some idea of 

339 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

the word "burgundy" combined with the word "mash." 
Here is a gulla dialect story, with a Hne-f or-Hne trans- 
lation. A train has killed a cow, and a negro witness 
is being examined by a justice of the peace: 



Justice — Uncle John, did you see 
what killed Sam's cow? 

Negro — Co'ose Uh shum. 

Justice — What was it, Uncle 
John? 

Negro — Dat black debble you-all 
runnin' tru we Ian'. Nigga duh 

Stan' deh, duh po' coal in eh stom- 
ach. Buckra duh sit up on eh seat, 
duh smoke eh cigah, an' ebry tahme 
eh twis' eh tail eh run fasteh. An' 

eh screams dis lak uh pantuh. Eben 
w'en eh git tuh de station, eh stan' 
tuh de station an' seh : "Kyan- 
stop ! Kyan-siop ! /Cyan-stop !" 
Sam cow binna browse down deh 

tuh Bull Head Crick. Eh ram eh 

nose innum, an' eh bussum wahde 

loose. Eh t'row eh intrus on de 

reyel on de cross-tie, an' clean-up 

on de telec/ram pole. 



(Of) course I saw him. 



(It was) that black devil you-all 
(are) running through our land. 
(A) nigger (fireman) he 
stands there (and) he pours coal 
into its stom- 
ach. (A) white man (engineer) 
he sits up on his seat, 
(and) he smokes his cigar, and 
every time 

he twists its (engine's) tail it runs 
faster. And 

it screams j ust like a panther. Even 
when it gets to the station, it stands 
at the station and says : "Can't- 
stop ! Ca;i'/-stop ! Can '/-stop !" 

Sam's cow was browsing down 
there 

to (at) Bull Head Creek. It (en- 
gine) rammed its 

nose into it (the cow), and it 
busted him wide 

loose (open). It threw its entrails 
on the 
rails, on the cross-ties, and clean up 

on the telegraph pole. 



Mrs. Leiding (Harriette Kershaw Leiding), of 
Charleston, has done a fine service to lovers of Old 
Charleston, and its ways, in collecting and publishing in 

340 



"GULLA" AND THE BACK COUNTRY 

pamphlet form a number of the cries of the negro street 
vendors. Of these I shall rob Mrs. Leiding's booklet 
of but one example — the cry of a little negro boy, a ped- 
dler of shrimp ("swimp"), who stood under a window 
in the early morning and sang: 



^^E3Eg^^S^^^i3=^^i^^ 



An' a Daw-trj Daw! an' a swinip-y raw! an' a Daw - try Daw - try Daw-try Raw 

While on the subject of the Charleston negro I must 
not neglect two of his superstitions. One is his belief 
that a two-dollar bill is unlucky. The curse may be re- 
moved only by tearing off a corner of the bill. The 
other is that it is unlucky to hand any one a pin. A 
Charleston lady told me that when she was motoring 
and wished to pin her hat or her veil, she could never 
get her negro chauffeur to hand her pins. Instead he 
would stick them in the laprobe, or in the sleeve of his 
coat, whence she could pick them out herself. Another 
lady told me of the case of an old black slave who lived 
years ago on a plantation on the Santee River, owned 
by her family. This slave, who was a very powerful, 
taciturn and high-tempered man, had a curious habit of 
disappearing for about half an hour each day. He 
would go into the swamp, and for many years no one 
ever followed him, the other negroes being afraid to do 
so because of his temper and his strength. At last, 
however, they did spy upon him and discovered that in 
the swamp there stood a cypress tree on which were 
strange rude carvings, before which he prostrated him- 

341 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

self. No one ever learned the exact significance of 
this, but it was assumed that the man practised some 
barbaric form of worship, brought from Africa. 

The country back of Charleston is very lovely and is 
rich in interest, even though most of the houses on the 
old estates have been destroyed, Drayton Hall, how- 
ever, stands, and the old Drayton estate, Magnolia, not 
far distant from the Hall (which was on another es- 
tate), has one of the most famous gardens in the world. 
Seven persons touching fingertips can barely encircle the 
trunks of some of the live-oaks at Magnolia; there are 
camellias more than twenty feet high, and a rose tree 
nearly as large, but the great glory of the garden is 
its huge azaleas — ninety-two varieties, it is said — which, 
when they blossom in the spring, are so wonderful that 
people make long journeys for no other purpose than to 
see them. 

In "Harper's Magazine" for December, 1875, I find 
an account of the gardens which were, at that time, far 
from new. The azaleas were then twelve and thirteen 
feet tall ; now, I am told, they reach to a height of more 
than twenty feet, with a corresponding spread. 

"It is almost impossible," says the anonymous writer 
of the article, "to give a Northerner any idea of the 
affluence of color in this garden when its flowers are in 
bloom. Imagine a long walk with the moss-draped live- 
oaks overhead, a fairy lake and a bridge in the distance, 
and on each side the great fluffy masses of rose and pink 

342 



^^GULLA" AND THE BACK COUNTRY 

and crimson, reaching far above your head, thousands 
upon tens of thousands of blossoms packed close to- 
o-ether, with no green to mar the intensity of their color, 
rounding out in swelling curves of bloom down to the 
turf below, not pausing a few inches above it and show- 
ing bare stems or trunk, but spreading over the velvet, 
and trailing out like the rich robes of an empress. 
Stand on one side and look across the lawn; it is like a 
mad artist's dream of hues; it is like the Arabian nights; 
eyes that have never had color enough find here a full 
feast, and go away satisfied at last. And with all their 
gorgeousness, the hues are delicately mingled; the magic 
effect is produced not by unbroken banks of crude reds, 
but by blended shades, like the rich Oriental patterns of 
India shawls, which the European designers, with all 
their efi^orts, can never imitate." 

Another remarkable garden, though not the ecjual of 
Magnolia, is at Middleton Place, not many miles away, 
and still another is at the pleasant winter resort town of 
Summerville, something more than twenty miles above 
Charleston. The latter, called the Pinehurst Tea Gar- 
den, is said to be the only tea garden in the United 
States. It is asserted that the teas produced here are 
better than those of China and Japan, and are equal to 
those of India. The Government is cooperating with 
the owners of this garden with a view to introducing tea 
planting in the country in a large way. 

The finest grade of tea raised here is known as "Shel- 
ter Tea," and is sold only at the gardens, the price being 

343 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

five dollars per pound. It is a tea of the Assam species 
grown under shelters of wire mesh and pine straw. 
This type of tea is known in Japan, where it originated, 
as "sugar tea," because, owing to the fact that it is grown 
in the shade, the sap of the bush, which is of starchy 
quality, is turned chemically into sugar, giving the leaf 
an exceedingly delicate flavor. 

From the superintendent in charge of the gardens I 
learned something of the bare facts of the tea growing 
industry. I had always been under the impression that 
the name "pekoe" referred to a certain type of tea, but 
he told me that the word is Chinese for "eyelash," and 
came to be used because the tip leaves of tea bushes, 
when rolled and dried, resemble eyelashes. These 
leaves — "pekoe tips" — make the most choice tea. The 
second leaves make the tea called "orange pekoe," while 
the third leaves produce a grade of tea called simply 
"pekoe." In China it is customary to send three groups 
of children, successively, to pick the leaves, the first 
group picking only the tips, the second group the second 
leaves, and the third group the plain pekoe leaves. At 
the Pinehurst Tea Gardens the picking is done by col- 
ored children, ranging from eight to fifteen years of age. 
All the leaves are picked together and are later sepa- 
rated by machinery. 

Summerville itself seems a lovely lazy town. It is 
the kind of place to which I should like to retire in the 
winter if I had a book to write. One could be very com- 
fortable, and there would be no radical distractions — 

344 




i\\o\i 6 A <- 



The interior is the oldest looking thing in the United States — Goose Creek Church 



"GULLA" AND THE BACK COUNTRY 

unless one chanced to see the Most Beautiful Girl in the 
World, who has been known to spend winters at that 
place. 

On the way from Charleston to Summerville, if you 
go by motor, you pass The Oaks, an estate with a new 
colonial house standing where an ancient mansion used 
to stand. A long avenue bordered by enormous live- 
oaks, leading to this house, gives the place its name, and 
affords a truly noble approach. Here, in Revolutionary 
times, Marion, "the Swamp Fox," used to camp. 

Not far distant from the old gate at The Oaks is Goose 
Creek Church — the most interesting church I have ever 
seen. The Parish of St. James, Goose Creek, was es- 
tablished by act of the Assembly, November 30, 1706, 
and the present church, a brick building of crudely sim- 
ple architecture, was built about 171 3. The interior of 
the church, though in good condition, is the oldest look- 
ing thing, I think, in the United States. The memorial 
tablets in the walls, with their foreign names and antique 
lettering, the curious old box pews, the odd little gallery 
at the back, the tall pulpit, with its winding stair, above 
all the Royal Arms of Great Britain done in relief on 
the chancel wall and brilliantly colored — all these make 
Goose Creek Church more like some little Norman 
church in England, than like anything one might reason- 
ably expect to find on this side of the world. 

Countless items of curious interest hang about the 
church and parish. Michaux. the French botanist w^ho 
came to this country in 1786, lived for a time at Goose 

345 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Creek. He brought with him the first four camellias 
seen in the United States, planting them at Middleton 
Place above Drayton Hall, where, I believe, they still 
stand, having reached a great height. A British officer 
known as Mad Archy Campbell was married at Goose 
Creek Church during the Revolution, under romantic 
circumstances. Miss Paulina Phelps, a young lady of 
the parish, was a great beauty and a great coquette, 
who amused herself alike with American and British 
officers. Campbell met and fell desperately in love with 
her, and it is said that she encouraged him, though with- 
out serious intent. One day he induced her to go horse- 
back-riding with him and on the ride made love to her 
so A^ehemently that she was "intimidated into accepting 
him." They rode to the rectory, and Campbell, meeting 
the rector, demanded that he should marry them at once. 
The dominie replied that he would do so "with the con- 
sent of the young lady and her mother," but Campbell 
proposed to await no such formalities. Drawing his 
pistol he gave the minister the choice of performing the 
ceremony then and there, or perishing. This argument 
proved conclusive and the two were promptly wed. 

When Goose Creek was within the British lines it is 
said that the minister proceeded, upon one occasion, to 
utter the prayer for the King of England, in the Litany. 
At the end of the prayer there were no "Amens," the 
congregation having been composed almost entirely, as 
the story goes, of believers in American independence. 
Into the awkward pause after the prayer one voice from 

346 



"GULLA" AND THE BACK COUNTRY 

the congregation was at last injected. It was the voice 
of old Ralph Izard, saying heartily, not "Amen," but 
"Good Lord, deliver us!" There is a tablet in the 
church to the memory of this worthy. 

The story is told, also, of an old gentleman, a member 
of the congregation in Revolutionary times, who in- 
formed the minister that if he again read the prayer for 
the King he would throw his prayer-book at his head. 
The minister took this for a jest, but when he began to 
read the prayer on the following Sunday, he found that 
it was not, for sure enough the prayer-book came 
hurtling through the air. Prayer-books were heavier 
then than they are now, and it is said that as a result of 
this episode, the minister refused to hold service there- 
after. 

The church is not now used regularly, an occasional 
memorial service only being held there. 

Charleston is a hard place to leave. Wherever one 
may be going from there, the change is likely to be 
for the worse. Nevertheless, it is impossible to stay 
forever; so at last you muster up your resignation and 
your resources, buy tickets, and reluctantly prepare to 
leave. If you depart as we did, you go by rail, driving 
to the station in the venerable bus of the Charleston 
Transfer Company — a conveyance which, one judges, 
may be coeval with the city's oldest mansions. Kittle as 
we wished to leave Charleston we did not wish to defer 
our departure through any such banality as the unneces- 

347 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

sary missing of a train. Therefore as we waited for 
the bus, on the night of leaving, and as train time drew 
nearer and nearer, with no sign of the himbering old 
vehicle, we became somewhat concerned. 

When the bus did come at last there was little time 
to spare ; nevertheless the conductor, an easygoing man 
of great volubility, consumed some precious minutes in 
gossiping with the hotel porter, and then with arranging 
and rearranging the baggage on the roof of the bus. 
His manner was that of an amateur bus conductor, try- 
ing a new experiment. After watching his perform- 
ances for a time, looking occasionally at my watch, by 
way of giving him a hint, I broke out into expostulation 
at the unnecessary delay. 

"What 's the matter?" asked the man in a gentle, al- 
most grieved tone. 

'There 's very little time !" I returned. ''We don't 
wish to miss the train." 

"Oh, all right," said the bus conductor, making more 
haste, as though the information I had given him put a 
different face on matters generally. 

Presently we started. After a time he collected our 
fares. I have forgotten whether the amount was twen- 
ty-five or fifty cents. At all events, as he took the money 
from my hand he said to me reassuringly : 

"Don't you worry, sir ! If I don't get you to the train 
I '11 give you this money back. That 's fair, ain't it?" 



348 



CHAPTER XXXII 
OUT OF THE PAST 

BY no means all the leading citizens of Atlanta 
were in a frame of mind to welcome General 
Sherman when, ten or a dozen years after the 
Civil War, he revisited the city. Captain Evan P. 
Howell, a former Confederate officer, then publisher of 
the Atlanta "Constitution," was, however, not one of 
the Atlantans who ignored the general's visit. Taking 
his young son, Clark, he called upon the general at the 
old Kimball House (later destroyed by fire), and had 
an interesting talk with him. Clark Howell, who has 
since succeeded his father as publisher of the ''Consti- 
tution," was born while the latter was fighting at Chick- 
amauga, and was consequently old enough, at the time 
of the call on Sherman, to remember much of what was 
said. He heard the general tell Captain Howell why 
he had made such a point of taking Atlanta, and as Sher- 
man's military reasons for desiring possession of the 
Georgia city explain, to a large extent, Atlanta's subse- 
quent development, I shall quote them as Clark Howell 
gave them to me. 

First, however, it is perhaps worth while to remind 
the reader of the bare circumstances preceding the fall 

349 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

of Atlanta. After the defeat of the Confederate forces 
at Chattanooga, General Joseph E. Johnston's army fell 
back slowly on Atlanta, much as the French fell back on 
Paris at the beginning of the European War, shortening 
their own lines of communication while those of the ad- 
vancing Germans were being continually attenuated. 
As the Germans kept after the French, Sherman kept 
after Johnston ; and as Joff re was beginning to be criti- 
cized for failing to make a stand against the enemy, so 
was Johnston criticized as he continued to retire without 
giving battle. One of the chief differences between 
Joffre's retirement and Johnston's lies, however, in the 
length of time consumed ; for whereas the French retreat 
on Paris covered a few days only, the Confederate re- 
treat on Atlanta covered weeks and months, giving the 
Confederate Government time to become impatient with 
Johnston and finally to remove him from command be- 
fore the time arrived when, in his judgment, the stand 
against Sherman should be made. Nor is it inconceiv- 
able that, had the French retreat lasted as long as John- 
ston's, Joffre would have been removed and would have 
lost the opportunity to justify his Fabian policy, as he 
did so gloriously at the Battle of the Marne. 

Though Atlanta was, at the time of the war, a city 
of less than 10,000 inhabitants, it was the chief base of 
supply for men and munitions in the Far South. 

''When my father asked him why all his effort and 
power had been centered, after Chickamauga, on the 
capture of Atlanta," said Clark Howell, "I remember 

350 



OUT OF THE PAST 

that General Sherman extended one hand with the fin- 
gers spread apart, explaining the strategic situation by 
imagining Atlanta as occupying a position where the 
wrist joins the hand, while the thumb and fingers rep- 
resented, successively, New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, 
Charleston, and Norfolk. Tf I held Atlanta,' he said, 
T was only one day's journey from these chief cities of 
the South.' " 

In spite, therefore, of the assertion, which I have 
heard made, that the prosperity of Atlanta is "founded 
on insurance premiums, coca-cola, and hot air," it seems 
to me that it is founded on something very much more 
solid. Nor do I refer to the layer of granite which un- 
derlies the city. The prosperity of Atlanta is based 
upon the very feature which made its capture seem to 
Sherman so desirable : its strategic position as a central 
point in the Far South. 

Neither in Atlanta nor in any other part of Georgia 
is General Sherman remembered with a feeling that 
can properly be described as afifectionate, though it 
may be added that Atlanta has good reason for remem- 
bering him warmly. The burning of Atlanta by Sher- 
man did not, however, prove an unalloyed disaster, for 
the war came to an end soon after, and the rebuilding 
of the city supplied work for thousands of former Con- 
federate soldiers, and also drew to Atlanta many of the 
strong men who played leading parts in the subsequent 
commercial upbuilding of the place : such men as the late 
General Alfred Austell, Captain James W. English, and 

351 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

the three Inman brothers, Samuel, John, and Hugh — 
to mention but a few names. The First National Bank, 
established by General Austell, is, I believe, Atlanta's 
largest bank to-day, and was literally the first national 
bank established in Georgia, if not in the whole South, 
after the war. 

Woodrow Wilson was admitted to the bar in Atlanta, 
and, if I mistake not, practised law in an office not far 
from that meeting place of highways called Five Points. 
Here, at Five Points, two important trails crossed, long 
before there was any Atlanta : the north-and-south trail 
between Savannah and Ross's Landing, and the east- 
and-west trail, which followed the old Indian trails be- 
tween Charleston and New Orleans. When people from 
this part of the country wished to go to Ohio, Indiana, 
or the Mississippi Valley, they would take the old north- 
and-south trail to Ross's Landing, follow the Tennessee 
River to where it empties into the Ohio, near Paducah, 
Kentucky, and proceed thence to Mississippi. 

In the thirties, Atlanta — or rather the site of Atlanta, 
for the city was not founded until 1840 — was on the bor- 
der of white civiHzation in northern Georgia, all the 
country to the north of the Chattahoochee River, which 
flows a few miles distant from the city, having belonged 
to the Cherokee Indians, who had been moved there 
from Florida. Even in those times the Cherokees were 
civilized, as Indians go, for they lived in huts and prac- 
tised agriculture. Of course, however, their civiliza- 
tion was not comparable with that of the white man. If 

352 




(^ 



u 



< 



OUT OF THE PAST 

they had been as civiUzed as he, they might have driven 
him out of Florida, instead of having been themselves 
driven out, and they might have driven him out of 
Georgia, too, instead of having been pushed on, as they 
were, to the Indian Territory — eighteen thousand of 
them, under military supervision, on boats from Ross's 
Landing — leaving the beautiful white Cherokee rose, 
which grows wild and in great profusion, in the spring, 
as almost their sole memorial on Georgia soil. 

As Georgia became settled the trails developed into 
wagon and stage routes, and later they were followed, 
approximately, by the railroads. After three railroads 
had reached Atlanta, the State of Georgia engaged in 
what may have been the first adventure, in this country, 
along the lines of government-owned railroads : namely, 
the building of the Western & Atlantic, from Atlanta to 
Chattanooga, to form a link between the lower South 
and the rapidly developing West. This road was built 
in the forties, and it was along its line that Johnston re- 
treated before Sherman, from Chattanooga to Atlanta. 
Though it is now leased and operated by the Nashville, 
Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad Company, it is still 
owned by the State of Georgia. The lease, however, ex- 
pires soon, and (an interesting fact in view of the con- 
tinued agitation in other parts of the country for govern- 
ment ownership of corporations) there is a strong senti- 
ment in Georgia in favor of selling the railroad ; for it is 
estimated that, at a fair price, it would yield a sum suffi- 
cient not only to wipe out the entire bonded indebtedness 

353 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

of the State ($7,000,000), but to leave ten or twelve mil- 
lions clear in the State treasury. 

At Roswell, Georgia, a sleepy little hamlet in the 
hills, not many miles from Atlanta, stands Bulloch Hall, 
where Martha ("Mittie") Bulloch, later Mrs. Theodore 
Roosevelt, mother of the President, was born. Roswell 
was originally settled, long ago, by people from Savan- 
nah, Darien, and other towns of the flat, hot country 
near the coast, who drove there in their carriages and 
remained during the summer. After a time, however, 
three prosperous families — the Bullochs, Dunwoodys, 
and Barrington Kings — made their permanent homes at 
Roswell. 

Bulloch Hall is one of those old white southern co- 
lonial houses the whole front of which consists of a 
great pillared portico, in the Greek style, giving a look 
of dignity and hospitality. Almost all such houses are, 
as they should be, surrounded by fine old trees ; those at 
Bulloch Hall are especially fine: tall cedars, ancient 
white oaks, giant osage oranges, and a pair of holly 
trees, one at either side of the walk near the front door. 

Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., and Mittie Bulloch met here 
when they were respectively seventeen and fifteen years 
of age. A half sister of Miss Mittie had married a 
relative of the Roosevelts and gone from Roswell to live 
in Philadelphia, and it was while visiting at her home 
that young Roosevelt, hearing a great deal of the South, 
conceived a desire to go there. This resulted in his 

354 



OUT OF THE PAST 

first visit to Bulloch Hall, and his meeting with Mittie 
Bulloch. On his return to the North he was sent 
abroad, but two or three years later when he went again 
to visit his relatives in Philadelphia, Miss Mittie was 
also a guest at their house, and this time the two became 
engaged. 

Save that the Bulloch furniture is no longer there, the 
interior of the old Georgia residence stands practically 
as it was when Theodore Roosevelt and Mittie Bulloch 
were maried in the dining room. Through the center, 
from front to back, runs a wide hall, on either side of 
which is a pair of spacious square rooms, each with a 
fireplace, each with large windows looking out over the 
beautiful hilly country which spreads all about. It 
is a lovely house in a lovely setting, and, though the Bul- 
lochs reside there no longer, Miss Mittie Bulloch is not 
forgotten in Roswell, for one of her bridesmaids, Miss 
Evelyn King, now Mrs. Baker, still resides in Barring- 
ton Hall, not far distant from the old Bulloch home- 
stead. 



555 



CHAPTER XXXIII 
ALIVE ATLANTA 

AN army officer, a man of broad sympathies, 
familiar with the whole United States, warned 
me before I went south that I must not judge 
the South by northern standards. 

''On the side of picturesqueness and charm," he said, 
"the South can more than hold its own against the rest 
of the country; likewise on the side of office-holding and 
flowery oratory ; but you must not expect southern cities 
to have the energy you are accustomed to in the North." 

As to the picturesqueness, charm, officeholding, and 
oratory, I found his judgments substantially correct, 
but though I did perceive a certain lack of energy in 
some small cities, I should not call that trait a leading- 
one in the larger southern cities to-day. On the con- 
trary, I was impressed, in almost every large center that 
I visited, with the fact that, in the South more, perhaps, 
than in any other part of the country, a great awakening 
is in progress. The dormant period of the South is 
past, and all manner of developments are everywhere in 
progress. Nor do I know of any city which better ex- 
emplifies southern growth and progress than Atlanta. 

My Baedeker, dated 1909, opens its description of At- 

356 



ALIVE ATLANTA 

lanta with the statement that the German consul there 
is Dr. E. Zoepfifel. I doubt it — but let us pass over that. 
It describes Atlanta as "a prosperous commercial and 
industrial city and an important railroad center, well 
situated, 1030-1175 feet above the sea, enjoying a 
healthy and bracing climate." That is true. Atlanta 
is, if I mistake not, the highest important city east of 
Denver, and I believe her climate is in part responsible 
for her energy, as it is also for the fact that her vegeta- 
tion is more like that of a northern than a southern 
city, elms and maples rather than magnolias, being the 
trees of the Atlanta streets. 

Baedeker gave Atlanta about 90,000 inhabitants in 
1909, but the census of 1910 jumped her up to more 
than 150,000, while the estimate of 1917 in the "World 
Almanac" credits her with about 180,000. Moreover, 
in the almanac's list of the largest cities of the earth, 
Atlanta comes twentieth from the top. It is my duty, 
perhaps, to add that the list is arranged alphabetically 
— which reminds me that some cynic has suggested that 
there may have been an alphabetical arrangement of 
names, also, in the celebrated list in which Abou Ben 
Adhem's "name led all the rest." Nevertheless, it may 
be stated that, according to the almanac's population 
figures, Atlanta is larger than the much more ancient 
city of Athens (I refer to Athens, Greece; not Athens, 
Georgia), as well as such considerable cities as Bari, 
Bochum, Graz, Kokand, and Omsk. Atlanta is, in 
short, a city of about the size of Goteborg, and if she has 

357 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

not yet achieved the dimensions of Baku, Belem, Chang- 
sha, Tashkent, or West Ham, she is growing rapidly, 
and may some day surpass them all ; yes, and even that 
thriving metropolis, Yekaterinoslav. 

As to the "healthy and bracing climate," I know that 
Atlanta is cool and lovely in the spring, and I am told 
that her prosperous families do not make it a practice 
to absent themselves from home during the summer, 
according to the custom of the corresponding class in 
many other cities, northern as well as southern. 

Atlanta is one of the few large inland cities located 
neither upon a river nor a lake. When the city was 
founded, the customs of life in Georgia were such that 
no one ever dreamed that the State might some day go 
dry. Having plenty of other things to drink, the early 
settlers gave no thought to water. But, as time went on, 
and prohibition became a more and more important 
issue, the citizens of Atlanta began to perceive that, in 
emergency, the Chattahoochee River might, after all, 
have its uses. Water was, consequently, piped from the 
river to the city, and is now generally — albeit in some 
quarters mournfully— used. Though I am informed by 
an expert in Indian languages that the Cherokee word 
"Chattahoochee" is short for "muddy," the water is fil- 
tered before it reaches the city pipes, and is thoroughly 
palatable, whether taken plain or mixed. 

Well-off though Atlanta is, she would esteem herself 
better off, in a material sense at least, had she a naviga- 
ble stream; for her chief industrial drawback consists 

358 



ALIVE ATLANTA 

in railroad freight rates unmodified by water competi- 
tion. She has, to be sure, a number of factories, includ- 
ing a Ford automobile plant, but she has not so many 
factories as her strategic position, stated by General 
Sherman, would seem to justify, or as her own industrial 
ambitions cause her to desire. For does not every pro- 
gressive American city yearn to bristle with factory 
chimneys, even as a summer resort folder bristles with 
exclamation points? And is not soot a measure of 
success ? 

Atlanta's line of business is largely office business; 
many great corporations have their headquarters or 
their general southern branches in the city; one of the 
twelve Federal Reserve Banks is there, and there are 
many strong banks. Indeed, I suppose Atlanta has more 
bankers, in proportion to her population, than any other 
city in the United States. Some of these bankers are 
active citizens and permanent residents of the city; 
others have given up banking for the time being and 
are in temporary residence at the Federal Penitentiary. 

The character of commerce carried on, naturally 
brings to Atlanta large numbers of prosperous and able 
men — corporation officials, branch managers, manufac- 
turers' agents, and the like — who, with their families, 
give Atlanta a somewhat individual social flavor. This 
class of population also accounts for the fact that the 
enterprisingness so characteristic of Atlanta is not the 
mere rough, ebullient spirit of "go to it!" to be found 
in so many hustling cities of the Middle West and West, 

359 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

but is, oftentimes, an informed and cultivated kind 
of enterprisingness, which causes Atlanta not only to 
"do things," but to do things showing vision, and, fur- 
thermore, to do them with an "air." 

This is illustrated in various ways. It is shown, for 
example, in Atlanta's principal hotels, which are not 
small-town hotels, or good-enough hotels, but would do 
credit to any city, however great. The office buildings 
are city office buildings, and in the downtown section 
they are sufficiently numerous to look very much at 
home, instead of appearing a little bit exotic, self-con- 
scious, and lonesome, as new skyscrapers do in so many 
cities of Atlanta's size. Even the smoke with which 
the skyscrapers are streaked is city smoke. Chicago 
herself could hardly produce smoke of more metropoli- 
tan texture — certainly not on the Lake Front, where the 
Illinois Central trains send up their black clouds; for At- 
lanta's downtown smoke, like Chicago's, comes in large 
part from railroads piercing the heart of the city. 
Where downtown business streets cross the railroad 
tracks, the latter are depressed, the highways passing 
above on steel bridges resembling the bridges over the 
Chicago River. The railroad's right of way is, further- 
more, just about as wide as the Chicago River, and rows 
of smoke-stained brick buildings turn their backs upon 
it, precisely as similar buildings turn theirs upon Chi- 
cago's busy, narrow stream. I wonder if all travelers, 
familiar with Chicago, are so persistently reminded of 
that portion of the city which is near the river, as I was 

360 



ALIVE ATLANTA 

by that portion of Atlanta abutting on the tracks by 
which the Seaboard Air Line enters the city. 

Generally speaking, railroads in the South have not 
been so prosperous as leading roads in the North, and 
with the exception of the most important through trains, 
their passenger equipment is, therefore, not so good. 
The Seaboard Air Line, however, runs an all-steel train 
between Atlanta and Birmingham which, in point of 
equipment, may be compared with the best limited trains 
anywhere. The last car in this train, instead of being 
part sleeping car and part observation car, is a com- 
bination dining and observation car — a very pleasant 
arrangement, for men are allowed to smoke in the obser- 
vation end after dinner. This is, to my mind, an im- 
provement over the practice of most railroads, which 
obliges men who wish to smoke to leave the ladies with 
whom they may be traveling. All Seaboard dining cars 
offer, aside from regular a la carte service, a sixty-cent 
dinner known as the "Blue Plate Special." This 
dinner has many advantages over the usual dining- 
car repast. In the first place, though it does not 
comprise bread and butter, coffee or tea, or dessert, it 
provides an ample supply of meat and vegetables at a 
moderate price. In the second place, though served at 
a fixed price, it bears no resemblance to the old-style 
dining car table d'hote, but, upon the contrary, looks 
and tastes like food. The food, furthermore, instead 
of representing a great variety of viands served in mi- 
croscopic helpings on innumerable platters and "side 

361 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

dishes," comes on one great plate, with recesses for vege- 
tables. The "Blue Plate Special" furnishes, in short, 
the chief items in a "good home meal." 

This is, perhaps, as convenient a place as any in which 
to speak of certain points concerning various railroads in 
the South. The Central of Georgia Railway, running 
between Atlanta and Savannah, instead of operating 
Pullmans, has its own sleeping cars. This is the only 
railroad I know of in the country on which the tenant 
of a lower berth, below an unoccupied upper, may have 
the upper closed without paying for it. One likes the 
Central of Georgia for this humane dispensation. The 
locomotives of the Western & Atlantic carry as a dis- 
tinguishing mark a red band at the top of the smoke- 
stack. The Southern Railway assigns engineers to in- 
dividual engines, instead of "pooling power," as is the 
practice, I believe, on many railroads. Because of this, 
engineers on the Southern regard the locomotives to 
which they are regularly assigned, as their personal 
property, and exercise their individual taste in embel- 
lishing them. Brass bands, brass flagstaff s, brass eagles 
over the headlight, and similar adornments are therefore 
often seen on the engines of this road, giving the most 
elaborate of them a carnival appearance, by contrast 
with the somber black to which most of us are accus- 
tomed, and hinting that not all the individuality has been 
unionized out of locomotive engineers — an impression 
heightened by the Southern Railway's further pleasant 

362 



ALIVE ATLANTA 

custom of painting the names of its older and more 
expert engineers upon the cabs of their locomotives. 

Some cities are like lumbering old farm horses, plug- 
ging along a dusty country road. When another horse 
•overtakes them, if they be not altogether wanting in 
spirit, they may be encouraged to jog a little faster for 
a moment, stimulated by example. If, besides being 
stupid, they are mean, then they want to kick or bite at 
the speedier animal going by. Some cities are like that, 
too. If an energetic city overtakes them, they are not 
spurred on to emulation, but lay back their ears, so to 
speak. Again, there are tough, sturdy little cities like 
buckskin ponies. There are skittish cities which seem to 
have been badly broken. There are old cities with a 
worn-out kind of elegance, like that of superannuated 
horses of good breed, hitched to an old-fashioned 
barouche. There are bad, bucking cities, like Butte, 
Montana. And here and there are cities, like Atlanta, 
reminding one of thoroughbred hunters. There is a 
brave, sporting something in the spirit of Atlanta which 
makes it rush courageously at big jumps, and clear them, 
and land clean on the other side, and be off again. 
Like a thoroughbred, she loves the chase. She goes in 
to win. She does n't stop to worry about whether 
she can win or not. She knows she will. And as 
the thoroughbred, loving large and astonishing achieve- 
ment, lacks the humbler virtues of the reliable family car- 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

riage horse, Atlanta, it cannot be denied, has ''Ics defaufs 
de scs qualites." For whereas, on the side of dashing- 
performance, Atlanta held a stock fair which, in one 
year, surpassed any other held in the South, and secured 
the grand circuit of races, on the other side she is care- 
less about hospitals and charities; and whereas, on the 
one side, she has raised millions for the building of two 
new universities (which, by the way, would be much 
better as one great university, but cannot be, because of 
sectarian domination), on the other, she is deficient as to 
schools; and again, whereas she is the only secondary 
city to have an annual season of Metropolitan grand 
opera (and to make it pay!) she is behind many other 
cities, including her neighbors. New Orleans and Savan- 
nah, in caring for the public health. 

I am by no means sure that the regular spring visit of 
the Metropolitan Grand Opera Company may be taken 
as a sign that Atlanta is peculiarly a music-loving com- 
munity. Indeed, I was told by one Atlanta lady, herself 
a musician, that the city did not contain more than a 
thousand persons of real musical appreciation, that a 
number of these could not afford to attend the operatic 
performances, and that opera week was, consequently, 
in reality more an occasion of great social festivity than 
of devout homage to art. 

"Our opera week," she told me, "bears the same rela- 
tion to the life of Atlanta as Mardi Gras does to that of 
New Orleans. It is an advertisement for the city, and 
an excuse for every one to have a good time. Every 

364 



ALIVE ATLANTA 

night after the performance there are suppers and 
dances, which the opera stars attend. They always 
seem to enjoy coming here. They act as though they 
were off on a picnic, skylarking about the hotel, snap- 
shotting one another, and playing all manner of pranks. 
And, of course, while they are here they own the town. 
Caruso draws his little caricatures for the Atlanta girls, 
and Atlanta men have been dazzled, in successive sea- 
sons, by such gorgeous beings as Geraldine Farrar, 
Alma Gluck, and Maria Barrientos — not only across the 
footlights of the auditorium, mind you, but at close 
range; as, for instance, at dances at the Driving Club, 
with Chinese lanterns strung on the terrace, a full moon 
above, and — one year — with the whole Metropolitan 
Orchestra playing dance music all night long!" 

Another lady, endeavoring to picture to me the strain 
involved in the week's gaieties, informed me that when 
it was all over she went for a rest to New York, where 
she attended "a house party at the Waldorf" ! 

Of all Atlanta's undertakings, planned or accom- 
plished, that which most interested my companion and 
me was the one for turning a mountain into a sculptured 
monument to the Confederacy. 

Sixteen miles to the east of the city the layer of granite 
which underlies the region stuck its back up, so to speak, 
forming a great smooth granite hump, known as Stone 
Mountain. This mountain is one of America's natural 
wonders. In form it may be compared with a round- 

365 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

backed fish, such as a whale or porpoise, lying on its 
belly, partly imbedded in a beach, and some conception 
of its dimensions may be gathered from the fact that 
from nose to tail it measures about two miles, while the 
center of its back is as high as the Woolworth Building 
in New York. Moreover, there is not a fissure in it; 
monoliths a thousand feet long have been quarried from 
it ; it is as solid as the Solid South. 

The perpendicular streaks of light and dark gray and 
gray-green, made by the elements upon the face of the 
rock, coupled with the waterfall-like curve of that face, 
make one think of a sort of sublimated petrified Niagara 
— a fancy enhanced, on windy days, by the roar of the 
gale-lashed forest at the mountain's foot. 

The idea of turning the mountain into a Confederate 
memorial originated with Mr. William H. Terrell of 
Atlanta. It was taken up with inspired energy by Mrs. 
C. Helen Plane, an Atlanta lady, now eighty-seven years 
of age, who is honorary president of the United Daugh- 
ters of the Confederacy and president of the Stone 
Mountain Memorial Association. Mrs. Plane presented 
the memorial plan to Mr. Samuel H. Venable of Venable 
Brothers, owners of the mountain, and Mr. Venable 
promptly turned over the whole face of the mountain to 
the Memorial Association. The exact form the me- 
morial was to take had not at that time been developed. 
Gutzon Borglum was, however, called in, and worked 
out a stupendous idea, which he has since been com- 
missioned to execute. On the side of the mountain, 

366 



ALIVE ATLANTA 

about four hundred feet above the ground, a roadway is 
to be gouged -out of the granite. On this roadway will 
be carved, in gigantic outlines, a Confederate army, 
headed by Lee and Jackson on horseback. Other gen- 
erals will follow, and will, in turn, be followed by in- 
fantry, cavalry and artillery. The leading groups will 
be in full relief and the equestrian figures will be fifty or 
more feet tall. This means that the faces of the chief 
figures will measure almost the height of a man. The 
figures to the rear of the long column will, according to 
present plans, be in bas-relief, and the whole procession 
wall cover a strip perhaps a mile long, a.M of it carved out 
of the solid mountainside. 

A considerable tract of forest land at the foot of the 
great rock has already been dedicated as a park. Here, 
concealed by the trees, at a point below the main group 
of figures, a temple, with thirteen columns representing 
the thirteen Confederate States, is to be hewn out of the 
mountain, to be used as a place for the safe-keeping of 
Confederate relics and archives. 

Two million dollars is the sum spoken of to cover the 
total cost, and one of the finest things about the plans 
for raising this money is that contributions from the 
entire country are being accepted, so that not only the 
South, but the whole nation, may have a share in the 
creation of a memorial to that dead government which 
the South so poetically adores, yet which it would not 
willingly resurrect, and in the realization of a work re- 
sembling nothing so much as Kipling's conception of the 

367 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

artist in heaven, who paints on "3, ten-league canvas, 
with brushes of comet's hair." 

Until the Stone Mountain Memorial is completed, 
Atlanta's most celebrated monument will continue to be 
that of Jack Smith. The Jack Smith monument stands 
in Oakland Cemetery, not over the grave of Jack Smith, 
but over the grave that local character intends some day 
to occupy. Mr. Smith is reputed to be rich. He built 
the downtown office building known as ''The House that 
Jack Built." As befits the owner of an office building, 
he wears a silk hat, but a certain democratic simplicity 
may be observed in the rest of his attire, especially about 
the region of the neck, for though he apparently believes 
in the convention concerning the wearing of collars, he 
has a prejudice against the concealing of a portion of 
the collar by that useless and snobbish adornment, the 
necktie. Each spring, I am informed, it is his custom 
to visit his cemetery lot and inspect the statue of himself 
which a commendable foresight has caused him to erect 
over his proposed final resting place. It is said that 
upon the occasion of last season's vernal visit he was 
annoyed at finding his effigy cravated by a vine which 
had grown up and encircled the neck. This he caused 
to be removed; and it is to be hoped that when, at 
last, his monument achieves its ultimate purpose, those 
who care for the cemetery will see to it that leafy ten- 
drils be not permitted to mount to the marble collar of the 
figure, to form a necktie, or to obscure the nobly sculp- 
tured collar button. 

368 



CHAPTER XXXIV 
GEORGIA JOURNALISM 

IN journalism Atlanta is far in advance of many cities 
of her size, North or South. The Atlanta "Con- 
stitution," founded nearly half a century ago, is one 
of the country's most distinguished newspapers. The 
"Constitution" came into its greatest fame in the early 
eighties, when Captain Evan P. Howell — the same Cap- 
tain Howell who commanded a battery at the battle of 
Peachtree Creek, in the defense of Atlanta, and who 
later called, with his son, on General Sherm.an, as 
already recorded — became its editor, and Henry W. 
Grady its managing editor. Like William Allen White 
and Walt Mason of the Emporia (Kansas) "Gazette," 
who work side by side, admire each other, but disagree 
on every subject save that of the infallibility of the 
ground hog as a weather prophet, Howell and Grady 
worked side by side and were devoted friends, while dis- 
agreeing personally, and in print, on prohibition and 
many other subjects. Grady would speak at prohibition 
rallies and, sometimes on the same night, Howell, would 
speak at anti-prohibition rallies. In their speeches they 
would attack each other. The accounts of these 

369 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

speeches, as well as conflicting articles written by the 
two, would always appear in the "Constitution." 

Of the pair of public monuments to individuals which 
I remember having seen in Atlanta, one was the pleasing 
memorial, in Piedmont Park, to Sidney Lanier (who was 
peculiarly a Georgia poet, having been born in Macon, in 
that State, and having written some of his most beautiful 
lines under the spell of Georgia scenes), and the other the 
statue of Henry W. Grady, which stands downtown in 
Marietta Street. 

The Grady monument — one regrets to say it — is less 
fortunate as a work of art than as a deserved symbol of 
remembrance. Grady not only ought to have a monu- 
ment, but as one whose writings prove him to have been 
a man of taste, he ought to have a better one than this 
poor mid-Victorian thing, placed in the middle of a wide, 
busy street, with Fords parked all day long about its base. 

Says the inscription : 

HE NEVER SOUGHT A PUBLIC OFFICE. 

WHEN HE DIED HE WAS LITERALLY 

LOVING A NATION INTO PEACE. 

On another side of the base is chiseled a characteristic 
extract from one of Grady's speeches. This speech was 
made in 1899, in Boston, and one hopes that it may have 
been heard by the late Charles Francis Adams, who 
labored in Massachusetts for the cause of intersectional 
harmony, just as Grady worked for it in Georgia. 

This hour [said Grady] little needs the loyalty that is loyal 
to one section and yet holds the other in enduring suspicion and 



GEORGIA JOURNALISM 

estrangement. Give us the broad and perfect loyalty that loves 
and trusts Georgia alike with Massachusetts — that knows no 
South, no North, no East, no West ; but endears with equal and 
patriotic love every foot of our soil, every State in our Union, 

Grady could not only write and say stirring things ; he 
could be witty. He once spoke at a dinner of the New 
England Society, in New York, at which General Sher- 
man was also present. 

"Down in Georgia," he said, 'we think of General 
Sherman as a great general ; but it seems to us he was a 
little careless with fire." 

Nor was Grady less brilliant as managing editor than 
upon the platform. He had the kind of enterprise which 
made James Gordon Bennett such a dashing figure in 
newspaper life, and the New York "Herald" such a com- 
plete newspaper— the kind of enterprise that charters 
special trains, and at all hazards gets the story it 
is after. Back in the early eighties Grady was run- 
ning the Atlanta "Constitution" in just that way. If a 
big story "broke" in any of the territory around Atlanta, 
Grady would not wait upon train schedules, but would 
hire an engine and send his men to the scene. Once, fol- 
lowing a sensational murder, he learned that the Bir- 
mingham "Age-Herald" had a big story dealing with 
developments in the case. He wired the "Age-Herald" 
ofifering a large price for the story. When his offer 
was refused Grady knew that if he could not devise a 
way to get the story, Atlanta would be flooded next day 
with "Age-Heralds" containing the "beat" on the "Con- 

371 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

stitution." He at once chartered a locomotive and 
rushed two reporters and four telegraph operators down 
the line toward Birmingham. At Aniston, Alabama, 
the locomotive met the train which was bringing "Age- 
Heralds" to Atlanta. A copy of the paper was secured. 
The "Constitution" men then broke into a telegraph 
office and wired the whole story in to their paper, with 
the result that the "Constitution" was out with it before 
the Birmingham papers reached Atlanta. 

Atlanta was at that time a town of only about 40,000 
inhabitants, but the "Constitution," in the days of 
Howell and Grady, had a circulation four times greater 
than the total population of the city — a situation almost 
unheard of in journalism. Something of the breadth 
of its influence may be gathered from the fact that in 
several counties in Texas, where the law provided that 
whatever newspaper had the largest circulation in the 
county should be the county organ, the county organ 
was the Atlanta "Constitution." 

An Atlanta lady tells of having called upon Grady 
to complain about an article which she did not think the 
"Constitution" should have printed. 

"Why did you put that objectionable article in your 
paper?" she asked him. 

"Did you read it?" he inquired. 

"Yes, I did." 

"Then," said Grady, "that 's why I put it there." 

Grady and Howell always ran a lively sporting de- 

372 



GEORGIA JOURNALISM 

partment. Away back in the days of bare-knuckle prize 
fights — such as those between Sullivan and Ryan, and 
Sullivan and Kilrain — a "Constitution" reporter was al- 
ways at the ringside, no matter where the fight might 
take place. For a newspaper in a town of forty or fifty 
thousand inhabitants, a large percentage of them colored 
illiterates, this was real enterprise. 

A favorite claim of Grady's was that his reporters 
were the greatest "leg artists" in the world. He used 
to organize walking matches for reporters, offering 
large prizes and charging admission. This developed, 
in the middle eighties, a general craze for such matches, 
and resulted in the holding of many inter-city contests, 
in which teams, four men to a side, took part. One of 
the "Constitution's" champion "leg artists" was Sam W. 
Small, now an evangelist and member of the "flying 
squadron" of the Anti-Saloon League of America. 

The most widely celebrated individual ever connected 
with the "Constitution" was Joel Chandler Harris, many 
of whose "Uncle Remus" stories — those negro folk 
tales still supreme in their field — appeared originally in 
that paper. In view of Mr. Harris's achievement it is 
pleasant to recall that there was paid to him during his 
life one of the finest tributes that an author can receive. 
As with "Mr. Dooley" of our day, he came, himself, to 
be affectionately referred to by the name of the chief 
character in his works. "Uncle Remus" he was, and 
''Uncle Remus" he will always be. Mr. Harris's eldest 

2,73 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

son, Julian, widely known as a journalist, is said to have 
been the little boy to whom "Uncle Remus'' told his 
tales. 

Though there is, as yet, no public monument in At- 
lanta to Joel Chandler Harris, the "Wren's Nest," his 
former home, at 214 Gordon Street, is fittingly pre- 
served as a memorial. Visitors may see the old let- 
ter box fastened to a tree by the gate — that box in 
which a wren built her nest, giving the house its name. 
It is a simple old house with the air of a home about 
it, and the intimate possessions of the author lie about 
as he left them. His bed is made up, his umbrella hangs 
upon the mantelshelf, his old felt hat rests upon the 
rack, the photograph of his friend James Whitcomb 
Riley looks down from the bedroom wall, and on the 
table, by the window, stands his typewriter — the confi- 
dant first to know his new productions. 

The presence of these personal belongings keeps alive 
the illusion that "Uncle Remus" has merely stepped 
out for a little while — is hiding in the garden, wait- 
ing for us to go away. It would be like him, for he 
was among the most modest and retiring of men, as 
there are many amusing anecdotes to indicate. Once 
when some one had persuaded him to attend a large 
dinner in New York, they say, he got as far as New 
York, but as the dinner hour approached could not bear 
to face the adulation awaiting him, and incontinently 
fled back to Atlanta. 

Frank L. Stanton, poet laureate of Georgia, and of 

374 



GEORGIA JOURNALISM 
the "Constitution," joined the "Constitution" staff 
through the efforts of Mr. Harris, one of whose closest 
intimates he was. Speaking of Mr. Harris's gift for 
negro dialect, Mr. Stanton told me that there was one 
negro exclamation which "Uncle Remus" always wished 
to reproduce, but which he never quite felt could be 
expressed, in writing, to those unfamiliar with the 
negro at first hand: that is the exclamation of amaze- 
ment, which has the sound, "mmm— wi/i/"— the first syl- 
lable being long and the last sharp and exclamatory. 

Mr. Stanton has for years conducted a column of 
verse and humorous paragraphic comment, under the 
heading "Just from Georgia," on the editorial page of 
the "Constitution." Some idea of the high estimation 
in which he is held in his State is to be gathered from 
the fact that "Frank L. Stanton Day" is annually cele- 
brated in the Georgia schools. 

Mr. Stanton began his newspaper career as a country 
editor in the town of Smithville, Georgia. Mr. Har- 
ris, then a member of the "Constitution's" editorial staff, 
began reprinting in that journal verses and paragraphs 
written by Stanton, with the result that the Smithville 
paper became known all over the country. Later Stan- 
ton moved to Rome, Georgia, becoming an editorial 
writer on a paper there— the "Tribune," edited at that 
time by John Temple Graves, if I am not mistaken. 
Still later he removed to Atlanta, joined the staff of the 
"Constitution," and started the department which has 
now continued for more than twenty-five years. 

375 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Joel Chandler Harris used to tell a story about Stan- 
ton's first days in the "Constitution" office. According 
to this story, the paper on which Stanton had worked 
in Rome had not been prosperous, and salaries were 
uncertain. When the business manager went out 
to try to raise money in the town, he never returned 
without first reading the signals placed by his assist- 
ant in the office window. If a red flag was shown, 
it signified that a collector was waiting in the office. In 
that event the business manager would not come in, but 
would circle about until the collector became tired of 
waiting and departed — a circumstance indicated by the 
withdrawal of the red flag and the substitution of a 
white one. According to the story, as it was told to 
me, reporters on the paper were seldom paid; if one of 
them made bold to ask for his salary, he was likely to 
be discharged. It was from this uncertain existence 
that Stanton was lured to the "Constitution" by an oiTer 
of $22.50 per week. When he had been on the "Consti- 
tution" for three weeks Mr. Harris discovered that he 
had drawn no salary. This surprised him — as indeed 
it would any man who had had newspaper experi- 
ence. 

"Stanton," he said, "you are the only newspaper man 
I have ever seen who is so rich he does n't need to draw 
his pay." 

But, as it turned out, Stanton was not so prosperous 
as Harris perhaps supposed. He was down to his last 
dime, and had been wondering how he could manage to 

376 




The office ImiMuii^s nw cily ntiuc liuil'lings, aivl arc sufficiently numerous to 
look very much at home 



GEORGIA JOURNALISM 

get along; for his training on the Rome paper had taught 
him never to ask for money lest he lose his job. 

"Well," he said to Harris, ''I could use some of my 
salary— if you 're sure it won't be any inconven- 
ience?" 

Those familiar with the works of Mr. Stanton, Mr. 
Harris, and James Whitcomb Riley, Indiana's great 
poet, will perceive that certain similar tastes and feel- 
ings inform their writings, and will not be surprised 
to learn, if not already aware of it, that the three were 
friends. Mr. Stanton's only absence from Atlanta since 
he joined the ''Constitution," was on the occasion of a 
visit he paid Mr. Riley at the latter's home in Indian- 
apolis. The best of Stanton's work must have appealed 
to Riley, for it contains not a little of the kindly, homely, 
humorous truthfulness, and warmth of sentiment, of 
which Riley was himself such a master. Among the 
most widely familiar verses of the Georgia poet are 
those of his "Mighty Like a Rose," set to music by Ethel- 
bert Nevin, and "J^st a-Wearying for You," with mu- 
sic by Carrie Jacobs Bond. "Money" is a verse in 
hilarious key, which many will remember for the com- 
ical vigor of the last three lines in its first stanza : 

When a fellow has spent 

His last red cent 

The world looks blue, you bet ! 

But give him a dollar 

And you '11 hear him holler : 

"There's life in the old land yet!" 

377 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Richly humorous though Stanton is, he can also 
reach the heart. The former Governor of a Western 
State picked up Stanton's book, "Songs of the Soil," 
and after reading "Hanging Bill Jones," and "A Trag- 
edy," therein, commuted the sentence of a man who was 
to have been executed next day. One hopes the man 
deserved to escape. In another case an individual who 
was about to commit suicide chanced to see in an old 
newspaper Stanton's encouraging verses called "Keep 
a-Goin'," and was stimulated by them to have a fresh 
try at life on earth instead of elsewhere. 

Joel Chandler Harris wrote the introduction to 
"Songs of the Soil." Other collections of Stanton's 
works are "Songs of Dixie Land," and "Comes One 
With a Song." The danger in starting to quote from 
these books — which, by the way, are chiefly made up of 
measures that appeared originally in the "Constitu- 
tion" — is that one does not like to stop. I have, how- 
ever, limited myself to but one more theft, and instead 
of making my own choice, have left the selection to a 
friend of Mr. Stanton's, who has suggested the lines 
entitled "A Poor Unfortunate" : 

His boss went dead, an' his mule vyent lame, 
He lost six cows in a poker game ; 
A harricane come on a summer's day 
An' carried the house whar he lived away, 
Then a earthquake come when that wuz gone 
An' swallered the land that the house stood on ! 
An' the tax collector, he come roun' 
An' charged him up f er the hole in the groun' ! 

37^ 



GEORGIA JOURNALISM 

An' the city marshal he come in view 
An' said he wanted his street tax, too ! 

Did he moan an' sigh? Did he set an' cry 

An' cuss the harricane sweepin' by? 

Did he grieve that his old friends failed to call 

When the earthquake come and swallered all? 

Never a word o' blame he said, 

With all them troubles on top his head ! 

Not him ! He climbed on top o' the hill 

Whar stan'in' room wuz left him still, 

An', barrin' his head, here 's what he said : 

"I reckon it 's time to git up an' git. 

But, Lord, I hain't had the measles yit ! " 

Among those who have been on the staff of the ''Con- 
stitution" and have become widely known, may be men- 
tioned the gifted Corra Harris, many of whose stories 
have Georgia backgrounds, and who still keeps as a 
country home in the State where she was born, a log 
cabin, known as "In the Valley," at Pine Log, Geor- 
gia; also the perhaps equally (though differently) tal- 
ented Robert Adamson, whose administration as fire 
commissioner of the City of New York was so able as 
to result in a reduction of insurance rates. 

Atlanta reporters, it would seem, run to the New 
York Fire Department, for Joseph Johnson, who pre- 
ceded Mr. Adamson as commissioner, was once a re- 
porter on the Atlanta "Journal." The latter paper used 
to belong to Hoke Smith. It was at one time edited by 
John Temple Graves, who later edited the Atlanta 
"Georgian," and is now a member of the forces of 

379 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

William Randolph Hearst, in New York. The late 
Jacques Futrelle, the author, who went down with the 
Titanic, was a Georgian, and worked for years on the 
''Journal." Don Marquis, one of the most brilliant 
American newspaper ''columnists," now in charge of 
the department known as "The Sun Dial" on the New 
York "Evening Sun," was also at one time on the "Jour- 
nal," as was likewise Grantland Rice, America's most 
widely read sporting writer. Lollie Belle Wiley, w^hose 
poetry has a distinct southern quality, is, I believe, a 
member of the "Journal's" staff. As the eminent Ty 
Cobb once wrote a book, it seems fair to mention him 
also among Georgian authors, though so far as I know 
he never worked on an Atlanta paper. And if Atlanta's 
three celebrated golfers have not written for the papers, 
they have at least supplied the sporting page with much 
material. Miss Alexa Sterling of Atlanta, a young 
lady under twenty, is one of the best women golfers in 
the United States; Perry Adair also figures in national 
golf, and Robert T. ("Bobby") Jones, Jr., who was 
southern champion at the age of fourteen, is, perhaps, 
an unprecedented marvel at the game — so at least my 
golfing friends inform me. 

The continued militancy of the "Constitution," under 
the editorship of Clark Howell, w^ho sits in his father's 
old chair, with a bust of Grady at his elbow, is evidenced 
not only by its frequent editorials against lynching, but 
by its fearless campaign against another Georgia 
specialty — the "paper colonel." The ranks of the 

380 



GEORGIA JOURNALISM 

''paper colonels" in the South are chiefly made up of 
lawyers who "have been colonelized by custom for no 
other reason than that they have led their clients to vic- 
tory in legal battles." Some of the real colonels have 
been objecting to the paper kind, and the "Constitution" 
has bravely backed up the objection. 

The liveliness of journalism in Georgia does not be- 
gin and end in Atlanta. The Savannah "Morning 
News" has an able editorial page, and there are many 
others in the State. Some of the small-town papers are, 
moreover, well worth reading for that kind of breeziness 
which we usually associate with the West rather than 
the South. Consider, for example, the following, in 
which the Dahlonega (Georgia) "Nugget," published up 
in the mountains, in the section where gold is mined, 
discusses the failings of one Billie Adams, the editor's 
own son-in-law: 

On Saturday last, Billie Adams and his wife waylaid the public 
road over on Crown Mountain, where this sorry piece of human- 
ity stood and cursed while his wife knocked down and beat her 
sister, Emma. He is a son-in-law of ours, but if the Lord had 
anything to do with him. He must have made a mistake and 
thought He was breathing the breath of life into a dog. 

He is too lazy to work and lays around and waits for his wife 
to get what she can procure on credit, until she can get nothing 
more for him and the children to eat. Recently he claimed to be 
gone to Tennessee in search of work. Upon hearing that his 
family had nothing to eat, we had Carl Brooksher send over nearly 
four dollars' worth of provisions. In he came and sat there and 
feasted until every bite was gone. But this ends it with us. 

There are a lot of people who have sorry kinfolks, but in this 

381 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

instance if there were prizes offered, we would certainly win the 
first. 

Last year, thinking he would scare his mother-in-law and sister- 
in-law off from where they live, so he could get the place, he shot 
two holes through their window, turned their mule out of the 
stable, and tried to run it into the bean patch, besides hanging 
up a bunch of switches at the drawbars. Then their fence was 
set afire twice. This is said to be the work of his wife. Then, 
after carrying home meat, flour, lard, and vegetables to eat for 
her mother and sister, he whipped the latter because she refused 
to give him two of the wagon wheels. 

The city made a case against both for the whipping, and the 
wife, although coming to town alone frequently during the day, 
brought her baby and everything to the council room, plead 
guilty and was fined one and costs. Billie did n't appear, but if 
he stays in this country Marshal Wimpy will have him, when all 
these things will come to light, both in the council chamber and 
grand jury room. 

The scandal of newspaperdom in Georgia is, of 
course, Tom Watson, who pubHshes the "J^^^^'sonian" 
— a misnamed paper if there ever was one — in the town 
of Thomson. Many years ago, when Edward P. 
Thomas, now assistant to the president of the United 
States Steel Corporation, was a little boy in Atlanta, 
complaining about having his ears washed ; when Theo- 
dore D. Rousseau, secretary to Mayor Mitchel of New 
York, was having his early education drilled into him 
at the Ivy Street school ; when Ralph Peters, now presi- 
dent of the Long Island Railroad, had left Atlanta and 
become a division superintendent on the Panhandle 
Road ; when the parents of Ivy Ledbetter Lee were won- 
dering to what college they would send him when he 

382 



GEORGIA JOURNALISM 

grew to be a big boy; when Robert Adamson was a 
page in the Georgia Legislature — as long ago as that, 
Tom Watson was waving his red head and prominent 
Adam's apple as a member of the State House of Rep- 
resentatives. In the mad and merry days of Bryan- 
ism he became a Populist Member of Congress. He 
was nominated for vice-president, to run on the Popu- 
list ticket with Bryan. Later he ran for president on 
the ticket of some unheard-of party, organized in pro- 
test against the "conservatism" of the Populists. Wat- 
son's paper reminds one of Brann and his "Iconoclast." 
Reading it, I have never been able to discover what 
Watson was for. All I could find out was what he was 
violently against — and that is almost everything. He 
is the wild ass of Georgia journalism; the thistles of 
chaos are sweet in him, and order in any department of 
life is a chestnut burr beneath his tail. 



383 



CHAPTER XXXV 
SOME ATLANTA INSTITUTIONS 

THERE has been great rejoicing in Atlanta over 
the raising of funds for the establishment there 
of two new universities, Emory and Oglethorpe. 
Emory was founded in 19 14, as the result of a feud 
which developed in Vanderbilt University, located at 
Nashville, Tennessee, over the question as to whether 
the institution should be controlled by the Board of 
Bishops of the southern Methodist Episcopal Church, or 
by the University trustees, who were not so much inter- 
ested in the development of the sectarian side of the uni- 
versity. The fight was taken to the courts where the 
trustees won. As a result, Methodist influence and sup- 
port were withdrawn from Vanderbilt, which thence- 
forward became a non-sectarian college, and Emory was 
started — Atlanta having been selected as its home be- 
cause nearly a million and a half dollars was raised in 
Atlanta to bring it there. 

Oglethorpe is to be a Presbyterian institution, and 
starts off with a million dollars. 

This will give Atlanta three rather important col- 
leges, since she already has the technical branch of the 
University of Georgia, the main establishment of which 

384 




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I v H.S, V .' f- ' '" 4 ; ■» f a 

'■ '' ' i 

The negro roof-garden, Odd Fellows' Building, Atlanta 



SOME ATLANTA INSTITUTIONS 

located at Athens, Georgia, is one of the oldest stat> 
universities in the country, having been founded in 1801. 
(The University of Tennessee is the oldest state uni- 
versity in the South. It was founded in 1794. The 
University of Pennsylvania, dating from 1740, is the 
oldest of all state universities. Harvard, founded in 
1636, was the first college established in the country; 
and the only other American colleges which survive 
from the seventeenth century are William and Mary, at 
Williamsburg, Virginia, established in 1693, and St. 
John's College, at Annapolis, dating from 1696.) 

There is a tendency in some parts of the South to use 
the terms "college" and "university" loosely. Some 
schools for white persons, doing little if anything more 
than grammar and high-school work, are called "col- 
leges," and negro institutions doing similar work are 
sometimes grandiloquently termed "universities." 

Atlanta has thirteen public schools for negroes, but 
no public high school for them. There are, however, 
six large private educational institutions for negroes in 
the city, doing high-school, college, or graduate work, 
making Atlanta a great colored educational center. 
Of these, Atlanta University, a non-sectarian co- 
educational college with a white president (Mr. Ed- 
ward T. Ware, whose father came from New England 
and founded the institution in 1867), is, I believe, the 
oldest and largest. It is very highly spoken of. At- 
lanta and Clark Universities are the only two colored 
colleges in Atlanta listed in the "World Almanac's" table 

385 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

of American universities and colleges. Clark also has a 
white man as president. 

Spelman Seminary, a Baptist institution for colored 
girls, has a white woman president, and is partially sup- 
ported by Rockefeller money. Morehouse College, for 
boys, has a colored president, an able man, is of sim- 
ilar denomination and is also partially supported by 
Rockefeller funds. Spelman and Morehouse are run 
separately, excepting in college work, on which they 
combine. Both are said to be excellent. Morris 
Brown University is not a university at all, but does 
grammar and. high-school work. It is officered and 
supported by colored people, all churches of the African 
Methodist Episcopal denomination subscribing funds 
for its maintenance. Gammon Theological Seminary 
is, I am informed, the one adequately endowed educa- 
tional establishment for negroes in Atlanta. It would, 
of course, be a splendid thing if the best of these schools 
and colleges could be combined. 

Citizens of Atlanta do not, generally, take the inter- 
est they ought to take in these or other institutions for 
the benefit of negroes. To be sure, most Southerners do 
not believe in higher education for negroes ; but, even al- 
lowing for that viewpoint, it is manifestly unfair that 
white children should have public high schools and that 
negro children should have none, but should be obliged 
to pay for their education above the grammar grades. 
Perhaps there are people in Atlanta who believe that 
even a high-school education is undesirable for the 

386 



SOME ATLANTA INSTTFUTIONS 

negro. That, however, seems to me a pretty serious 
thing for one race to attempt to decide for another — 
especially when the deciding race is not deeply and sin- 
cerely interested in the uplift of the race over which it 
holds the whip hand. Certainly intelligent people in 
the South believe in industrial training for the negro, 
and equally certainly a negro high school could give in- 
dustrial training. 

Negroes are not admitted to Atlanta parks, nor are 
there any parks exclusively for them. Until recently 
there was no contagious-disease hospital to which ne- 
groes could be taken, and there is not now a reforma- 
tory for colored girls in the State of Georgia. Neither 
is there any provision whatsoever in the State for the 
care of feeble-minded colored children. And there is 
one thing even worse to be said. Shameful as are 
Georgia's frequent lynchings, shameful as is the State's 
indifference to negro welfare, blacker yet is the law upon 
her statute books making the "age of consent" ten 
years! Various women's organizations, and individual 
women, have, for decades, worked to change this law, 
but without success. The term "southern chivalry" 
must ring mocking and derisive in the ears of Georgia 
legislators until this disgrace is wiped out. Standing 
as it does, it means but one thing : that in order to pro- 
tect some white males in their depravity, the voters of 
Georgia are satisfied to leave little girls, ten, eleven, 
twelve years of age, and upward, white as well as col- 
ored, utterly unprotected by the law in this regard. 

387 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

I have heard more than one woman in Georgia inti- 
mate that she would be well pleased with a little less 
exterior "chivalry" and a little more plain justice. 
Aside from their efforts to change the "age of con- 
sent" law, leading women in the State have been work- 
ing for compulsory education, for the opening of the 
State University to women, for factory inspection and 
decent child-labor laws. The question of child labor 
has now been taken in hand by the National Govern- 
ment — as, of course, the "age of consent" should also 
be — but in other respects but little progress has been 
made in Georgia. 

From such cheerless items T turn gladly to a happier 
theme. 

As I have said elsewhere in this book, many colored 
people in Atlanta are doing well in various ways. At 
Atlanta University I saw several students whose fa- 
thers and mothers were graduates of the same institu- 
tion. Higher education for the negro has, thus, come 
into its second generation. More prosperous negroes in 
Atlanta are doing social settlement work among less 
fortunate members of their race, and have started a free 
kindergarten for negro children. Many good people in 
Atlanta are unaware of these facts, and I believe their 
judgment on the entire negro question would be modi- 
fied, at least in certain details, were they merely to in- 
form themselves upon various creditable negro activities 
in the city. The northern stranger, attempting to as- 
certain the truth about the negro and the negro problem, 



SOME ATLANTA INSTITUTIONS 

has to this extent the advantage of the average South- 
erner : prejudice and indifference do not prevent his go- 
ing among the negroes to find out what they are doing 
for themselves. 

At various times in my Hfe chance has thrown me 
into contact with charities in great variety, and philan- 
thropic work of many kinds. I have seen theoretical 
charities, sentimental charities, silly charities, pauper- 
izing charities, wild-eyed charities, charities which did 
good, and others which worked damage in the world; I 
have seen organized charities splendidly run under diffi- 
cult circumstances (as in the Department of Chari- 
ties under Commissioner Kingsbury, in New York 
City), and I have seen other organized charities badly 
run at great expense; I have seen charities conducted 
with the primary purpose of ministering to the vanity 
of self-important individuals who like to say: ''See all 
the good that I am doing!" and I have seen other per- 
sonal charities operated (as in the case of the Rocke- 
feller Foundation) with a perfectly magnificent scope 
and effectiveness. 

Nevertheless, of all the charities I have seen, of all 
the efforts I have witnessed to improve the condition 
of humanity, none has taken a firmer hold upon my 
heart than the Leonard Street Orphans' Home, for 
negro girls, in Atlanta. 

The home is a humble frame building which was used 
as a barracks by northern troops stationed in Atlanta 

389 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

after the Civil War. In it reside Miss Chadwick, her 
helpers, and about seventy little negro girls ; and it is an 
interesting fact that several of the helpers are young 
colored women who, themselves brought up in the home 
and taught to be self-supporting, have been drawn back 
to the place by homesickness. Was ever before an or- 
phan homesick for an orphans' home? 

Miss Chadwick is an Englishwoman. Coming out to 
America a good many years ago, she somehow found 
Atlanta, and in Atlanta somehow found this orphanage, 
which was then both figuratively and literally dropping 
to pieces. Some one had to take hold of it, so Miss 
Chadwick did. How successful she has been it is hard 
to convey in words. I do not mean that she has suc- 
ceeded in building up a great flourishing plant with a 
big endowment and all sorts of improvements. Far 
from it. The home stands on a tiny lot, the building 
is ramshackle and not nearly large enough for its pur- 
pose, and sometimes it seems doubtful where the money 
to keep it going will come from. Nevertheless the home 
is a hundred times more successful than I could have be- 
lieved a home for orphans, colored or white, could be 
made, had I not seen it with my own eyes. Its success 
lies not in material possessions or prosperity, not in the 
food and shelter it provides to those who so pitifully 
needed it, but in the fact that it is in the truest and finest 
sense a home, a place endowed with the greatest bless- 
ings any home can have: contentment and afifection. 

390 



SOME ATLANTA INSTITUTIONS 

What Miss Chadwick has provided is, in short, an insti- 
tution with a heart. 

How did she do it? That, hke the other mystery 
of how she manages to house those seventy small lively 
people in that little building, is something which only 
Heaven and Miss Chadwick understand. 

But then, if you have ever visited the home and met 
Miss Chadwick, and seen her with her children, you 
know that Heaven and Miss Chadwick understand a lot 
of things the rest of us don't know about at all ! 



391 



CHAPTER XXXVI 
A BIT OF RURAL GEORGIA 

To walk with the morning and watch its rose unfold; 
To drowse with the noontide lulled in its heart of gold ; 
To lie with the night-time and dream the dreams of old. 

— Madison Cawein. 

A MAN I know studies as a hobby something which 
he calls ''graphics" — the term denoting the re- 
action of the mind to certain words. One of 
the words he used in an experiment with me was "win- 
ter." When he said "winter" there instantly came to 
me the picture of a snowstorm in Quebec. I saw the 
front of the Hotel Frontenac at dusk through a mist 
of driving snow. There were lights in the windows. 
A heavy wind was blowing and as I leaned against it 
the front of my overcoat was plastered with sticky white 
flakes. The streets and sidewalks were deep with snow, 
and the only person besides myself in the vision was a 
sentry standing with his gun in the lee of the vestibule 
outside the local militia headquarters. 

If my friend were 'to come now and try me with the 
word "spring," I know what picture it would call to 
mind. I should see the Burge plantation, near Coving- 
ton, Georgia: the simple old white house with its rose- 
clad porch, or ''gallery," its grove of tall trees, its car- 
riage-house, its well-house, and other minor depend- 

392 



A BIT OF RURAL GEORGIA 

encies clustering nearby like chickens about a white hen, 
its background the rolling cottonfields, their red soil 
glowing salmon-colored in the sun. For, as I was never 
so conscious of the brutality of winter as in that evening 
snowstorm at Quebec, I was never so conscious, as at 
the time of our visit to the Burge plantation, of the 
superlative soft sweetness of the spring. 

In seasons, as in other things, we have our individual 
preferences. Melancholy natures usually love autumn, 
with its colorings so like sweet sad minor chords. But 
what kind of natures they are which rejoice in spring, 
which feel that with each spring the gloomy past is 
blotted out, and life, with all its opportunities, begins 
anew — what kind of natures they are which recognize 
April instead of January as the beginning of their year 
I shall not attempt to tell, for mine is such a nature, and 
one must not act at once as subject and diagnostician. 

So long as I endure, spring can never come again 
without turning my thoughts to northwestern Georgia ; 
to the peculiar penetrating warmth which passed 
through the clothing to the body and made one feel that 
one was not surrounded by mere air, but was immersed 
in a dry bath of some infinitely superior vapor, a vapor 
volatile, soothing, tonic, distilled, it seemed, from the 
earth, from pine trees, tulip trees, balm-of-Gilead trees, 
(or ''bam" trees, as they call them), blossoming Judas 
trees, Georgia crabapple, dogwood pink and white, peach 
blossom, wistaria, sweet-shrub, dog violets, pansy violets, 
Cherokee roses, wild honeysuckle and azalia, and the 

393 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

evanescent green of new treetops, all carried in solution 
in the sunlight. By day the brilliant cardinal adds his 
fine note of color and sound, but at night he is silent, 
and when the moon comes out one hears the mocking- 
bird and, it may be also, two whippoorwills, one in the 
erove near the house, one in the woods across the road, 
calling back and forth. Then one is tempted to step 
down from the porch, and follow the voices of the birds 
into the vague recesses of a night webbed with dark tree 
shadows outlined in blue moonlight. 

Small wonder it is, if, as report says, no houseparty 
on a southern plantation is a success unless young 
couples become ''sort of engaged," and if in a region so 
provocative in springtime under a full moon, a distinc- 
tion is recognized between being merely ''engaged," and 
being engaged to be married. 

One Georgia belle we met, a sloe-eyed girl whose repu- 
tation not only for beauty but for charm reached through 
the entire South, had, at the time of our visit, recently 
become engaged in the more grave and permanent sense. 

"How does it seem?" a girl friend asked her. 

"I feel," she answered, "like a man who has built up a 
large business and is about to go into the hands of a re- 
ceiver." 

Such ways as those girls have! Such voices! Such 
eyes ! And such names, too ! Names which would not 
fit at all into a northern setting, relatively so hard and 
unsentimental, but which, when one becomes accustomed 
to them, take their place gracefully and harmoniously 

394 



A BIT OF RURAL GEORGIA 

in the southern picture. The South Hkes diminutives 
and combinations in its women's names. Its Harriets, 
Franceses, Sarahs, and Marthas, become Hatties, Fan- 
nies, SaUies and Patsies, and Patsy sometimes under- 
goes a further transition and becomes Passie. More- 
over, where these diminutives have been passed down 
for several generations in a family, their origin is some- 
times lost sight of, and the diminutive becomes the actual 
baptismal name. In one family of my acquaintance, for 
example, the name Passie has long been handed down 
from mother to daughter. The original great-grand- 
mother Passie was christened Martha but was at first 
called Patsy; then, because her black mammy was also 
named Patsy, the daughter of the house came to be 
known, for purposes of dififerentiation, as Passie, and 
when she married and had a daughter of her own, the 
child was christened Passie. In this family the name 
May has more recently been adopted as a middle name, 
and it is customary for familiars of the youngest Passie, 
to address her not merely as Passie, but as Passie-May. 
The inclusion of the second name, in this fashion, is an- 
other custom not uncommon in the South. In Atlanta 
alone I heard of ladies habitually referred to as Anna- 
Laura, Hattie-May, Lollie-Belle, Sally-Maud, Nora- 
Belle, Mattie-Sue, Emma-Belle, Lottie-Belle, Susie- 
May, Lula-Belle, Sallie-Fannie, Hattie-Fannie, Lou- 
Ellen, Allie-Lou, Clara-Belle, Mary-Ella, and Hattie- 
Belle. Another young lady was known to her friends as 
Jennie-D. 

395 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

The train from Atlanta set us down at Covington, 
Georgia, or rather at the station which Hes between the 
towns of Covington and Oxford — for when this rail- 
road was built neither town would allow it a right of 
way, and to this day each is connected with the station 
by a street car line, either line equipped with one diminu- 
tive car, a pair of disconsolate mules, and a driver. 
Covington is the County seat, a quiet southern town, 
part old, part new, with a look of rural prosperity about 
it. Stopping at the postoffice to inquire for mail we saw 
this peremptory sign displayed: 

When the window is down don't bang around and 
ask for a stamp or two. 

— J. L. Callaway, Postmaster. 

As the window was down we tiptoed out and went 
upon our way, driving through Oxford before going to 
the plantation. This town was named for Oxford, Eng- 
land, and is, like its namesake, a college town. A small 
and very old Methodist educational institution, with a 
pretty though ragged campus and fine trees, is all there 
is to Oxford, save a row of ante-bellum houses. One 
of them, a pleasant white mansion, half concealed by the 
huge magnolias which stand in its front yard, was 
at one time the residence of General Longstreet. The 
old front gate, hanging on a stone post, was made by the 
general with his own hands — and well made, for it is to- 
day as good a gate as ever. Corra Harris lived at one 



396 



o 2. \ : 

f^ rf- ■■■.. ,, 

CO o 

2.(1) ^, 

Crq 




A BIT OF RURAL GEORGIA 

time in Oxford; her husband, Rev. Lundy H. Harris, 
having been a professor at the college. 

Though plantation life has necessarily changed since 
the war, I do not believe that there is in the whole South 
a plantation where it has changed less than on the Burge 
plantation. In appearance the place is not as Sher- 
man's men found it, for they tore down the fences and 
ruined the beautiful old-fashioned garden, and neither 
has been replaced; nor, of course, is it run, so far as 
practical affairs are concerned, as it was before the 
War; that is to say, instead of being operated as a 
unit of nine-hundred acres, it is now worked chiefly 
on shares, and is divided up into "one mule farms" 
and ''two mule farms," these being tracts of about 
thirty and sixty acres, respectively, thirty acres being 
approximately the area which can be worked by a man 
and a mule. 

Practically all the negroes on the place — perhaps a 
hundred in number — are either former slaves of the 
Burge family, or the children, grandchildren, and great- 
grandchildren of slaves who lived on the plantation. 
That is one reason why the plantation is less changed in 
spirit than are many others. The Burges were religious 
people, used their slaves kindly, and brought them up 
well, so that the negroes on the plantation to-day are re- 
spectable, and in some instances, exemplary people, very 
different from the vagrant negro type which has devel- 
oped since the War, making labor conditions in some 

397 



AMERICAN ADATENTURES 

parts of the South uncertain, and plantation life, in some 
sections, not safe for unprotected women. 

The present proprietors of the Burge plantation are 
two ladies, granddaughters of Mrs. Thomas Burge, who 
lived here, a widow, with a little daughter, when General 
Sherman and his hosts came by. These ladies fre- 
quently spend months at the plantation without male pro- 
tectors save only the good negroes of their own place, 
who look after them with the most affectionate devotion. 
True, the ladies keep an ugly looking but mild mannered 
bulldog, of which the negroes are generally afraid; true 
also they carry a revolver when they drive about the 
country in their motor, and keep revolvers handy in their 
rooms; but these precautions are not taken, they told 
me, because of any doubts about the men on their place, 
their one fear being of tramp negroes, passing by. 

Of their own negroes several are remarkable, par- 
ticularly one old couple, perfect examples of the fine 
ante-bellum type so much beloved in the South, and so 
much regretted as it disappears. 

During the period of twenty years or more, while the 
owners were absent, growing up and receiving their 
education, the whole place, indoors and out, was in 
charge of Uncle George and Aunt Sidney. The two 
lived, and still do live, in one wing of the house — 
over which Aunt Sidney presides as housekeeper and 
cook, as her mother, Aunt Liddy, did before her. Aunt 
Liddy died only a short time ago, aged several years 
over a hundred. Uncle George supervises all the busi- 

398 



A BIT OF RURAL GEORGIA 

ness of the plantation, as he has done for thirty or forty 
years. He collects all rents, markets the crops and re- 
ceives the payments, makes purchases, pays bills, and 
keeps peace between the tenants — nor could any human 
being be more honorable or possess a finer, sweeter dig- 
nity. As for devotion, when the little girls who were 
away returned after all the years as grown women, every 
ribbon, every pin in that house was where it had been 
left, and the place was no less neat than if the "white 
folks" had constantly remained there. 

Before Georgia went dry it was customary for negroes 
of the rougher sort to get drunk in town every Saturday 
night. Drunken negroes would consequently be pass- 
ing by, all night, on their way to their homes, yelling and 
(after the manner of their kind when intoxicated) shoot- 
ing their revolvers in the air. Every Saturday night, 
when the ladies were at home, Uncle George would 
quietly take his gun and place himself on the porch, 
remaining there until the last of the obstreperous way- 
farers had passed. 

Uncle Abe and Uncle Wiley are two other worthy and 
venerable men who live in cabins on the place. Both 
were there when Sherman's army passed upon its de- 
vastating way, and both were carried off, as were thou- 
sands upon thousands of other negroes out of that wide 
belt across the State of Georgia, which was overrun 
in the course of the March to the Sea. 

"Ah was goin' to mill wid de ox-caht," Uncle Abe 
told me, "when de soljas dey kim 'long an' got me. Dey 

399 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

toF me, 'Heah, nigga! Git out dat caht, an' walk be- 
hin'. When it moves you move; when it stops you 
stop!' An' like dat Ah walk all de way to Savannah 
[two hundred and fifty miles] . Den, after dat, dey took 
us 'long up No'th — me an' ma brotha Wiley, ovah deh.'^ 

I asked him what regiment he went with. He said it 
was the Twenty-second Indiana, and that Dr. Joe Stil- 
well, of that regiment, who came from a place near Madi- 
son, Indiana ("Ah reckon de town was name Browns- 
town"), was good to him. An officer whom he knew, he 
said, was Captain John Snodgrass, and another Major 
Tom Shay. 

"All Ah was evvuh wo'ied about aftuh dey kim tuck 
me," he declared, "was gittin' somep'n t' eat. Dat kinda 
put me on de wonduh, sometahmes, but dey used us all 
right. Dr. Pegg — him dat did de practice on de planta- 
tion befo' de Wah — he tol' de niggas dat de Yankees 
would put gags in deh moufs an' lead 'em eroun' like dey 
wuz cattle. But deh wa' n't like dat nohow. I b'longed 
to de Secon' Division, Thuhd B'gade, Fou'teenth Co' 
[corps]. Cap'n Snodgrass, he got to be lieutenant- 
cuhnel. He was de highes' man Ah evuh hel' any con- 
vuhsation wid, but I sazv all de gennuls of dat ahmy." 

Uncle Wiley is older than Uncle Abe. He was al- 
ready a grown man with three children when taken away 
by some of Sherman's men. He told me he was with the 
Fifty-second Ohio, and mentioned Captain Shepard. 

The two brothers got as far as Washington, D. C. 

"We got los' togedduh in de U. S. buildin' in dat city," 

■ 400 



K 




A BIT OF RURAL GEORGIA 

said Uncle Wiley. "De President of de U. S. right at 
dat tahme he was daid. He was kill', Ah don' s'pose 
it wuz a week befo' we got to Wash'n, D. C." 

"How did you happen to come all the way back?" I 
asked. 

"Well-1," ruminated the old man, "home was always 
a-restin' on mah min'. Ah kep' thinkin' 'bout home. 
So aftuh de Wah ceasted Ah jus' kim 'long back." 

Many of the old plantation customs still survive. A 
little before noon the bell is rung to summon the hands 
from the cotton fields. Over the red plowed soil you 
hear a darky cry, a melodious "Oh-o/z-oh!" as wild and 
musical as the cries of the south-Italian olive gatherers. 
The planters cease their work, mules stand still, traces 
are unhooked from singletrees, and chain-ends thrown 
over the mules' backs ; then the men mount the animals 
and ride in to the midday meal, the women trudging 
after. Those who rent land, or work on shares, go to 
their own cabins, while those employed by the hour or 
by the day (the rate of pay is ten cents an hour or sev- 
enty-five cents a day) come to the kitchen to be fed. 
Nor is it customary to stop there at feeding negroes. 
As in the old days, any negro who has come upon an 
errand or who has "stopped by" to sell supplies, or for 
whatever purpose, expects to stay for "dinner," and 
makes it a point to arrive about noon. Thus from 
sixteen to twenty negroes are fed daily at the Burge 
plantation house. 

The old Christmas traditions are likewise kept up. 

401 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

On Christmas day the negroes come flocking up to the 
house for their gifts. Their first concern is to attempt 
to cry "Christmas gift!" to others, before it can be said 
to them — for according to ancient custom the one who 
says the words first must have a gift from the other. 



402 



CHAPTER XXXVII 
A YOUNG METROPOLIS 

AN observer approaching- a strange city should be 
"neutral even in thought." He may listen to 
what is said of the city, but he must not per- 
mit his opinions to take form in advance ; for, like other 
gossip, gossip about cities is unreliable, and the casual 
stranger's estimate of cities is not always founded upon 
broad appreciations. But though it is unwise to judge 
of cities by what is said of them, it is perhaps worth 
remarking that one may often judge of men by what they 
say of cities. 

I remember an American manufacturer, broken down 
by overwork, who, when he looked at Pompeii, could 
think only of the wasted possibilities of Vesuvius as a 
power plant, and I remember two traveling salesmen 
on a southern railroad train who expressed scorn for 
the exquisite city of Charleston because— they said— it 
is but a poor market place for suspenders and barbers' 
supplies. There are those who think of Boston only as 
headquarters of the shoe trade, others who think of it 
only in the terms of culture, and still others who regard 
it solely as an abode of negrophiles. 

In the case of the chief city of Alabama, however, my 
companion and I noticed, as we journeyed through the 

403 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

South, that reports were singularly in accord. Bir- 
mingham is too young to have any Civil War history. 
Her history is the history of the steel industry in the 
South, and one hears always of that : of the affluence of 
the city when the industry is thriving, and hard times 
when it is not. One is invariably told that Birming- 
ham is not a southern city, but a northern city in the 
South, and the chief glories of the place, aside from 
steel, are (if one is to believe rumors current upon rail- 
road trains and elsewhere), a twenty-seven story build- 
ing, Senator Oscar Underwood, the distinguished Demo- 
cratic leader, and the Tutwiler Hotel. Even in Atlanta 
it is conceded that the Tutwiler is a good hotel, and when 
Atlanta admits that anything in Birmingham is good it 
may be considered as established that the thing is very, 
very good — for Birmingham and Atlanta view each 
other with the same degree of cordiality as is exchanged 
between St. Louis and Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. 
Paul, San Francisco and Los Angeles. 

Having been, in the course of our southern wander- 
ings, in several very bad hotels, and having heard the 
Tutwiler compared with Chicago's Blackstone, my com- 
panion and I held eager anticipation of this hostelry. 
Nor were our hopes dashed by a first glimpse of the city 
on the night of our arrival. It was a modern-looking 
city — just the sort of city that would have a fine new 
hotel. The railroad station through which we passed 
after leaving the train was not the usual dingy little 
southern station, but an admirable building, and the 

404 



A YOUNG METROPOLIS 

streets along which we presently found ourselves gliding 
in an automobile hack, were wide, smooth, and brightly 
illuminated by clustered boulevard lights. 

True, we had long since learned not to place 
too much reliance upon the nocturnal aspects of 
cities. A city seen by night is like a woman dressed for 
a ball. Darkness drapes itself about her as a black- 
velvet evening gown, setting off, in place of neck and 
arms, the softly glowing facades of marble buildings; 
lights are her diamond ornaments, and her perfume is 
the cool fragrance of night air. Almost all cities, and 
almost all women, look their best at night, and there are 
those which, though beautiful by night, sink, in their 
daylight aspect, to utter mediocrity. 

Presently our motor drew up before the entrance of 
the Tutwiler — a proud entrance, all revolving doors and 
glitter and promise. A brisk bell boy came running for 
our bags. The signs were of the best. 

The lobby, though spacious, was crowded ; the decora- 
tions and equipment were of that rich sumptuousness 
attained only in the latest and most magnificent Ameri- 
can hotels; there was music, and as we made our way 
along we caught a glimpse, in passing, of an attractive 
supper room, with small table-lights casting their soft 
radiance upon white shirt fronts and the faces of pretty 
girls. In all it was a place to make glad the heart of 
the weary traveler, and to cause him to wonder whether 
his dress suit would be wrinkled when he took it from 
his trunk. 

405 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Behind the imposing marble "desk" stood several im- 
peccable clerks, and to one of these I addressed myself, 
giving- our names and mentioning the fact that we had 
telegraphed for room«. I am not sure that this young 
inan wore a braided cutaway and a white carnation ; I 
only know that he affected me as hotel clerks in braided 
cutaways and white carnations always do. While I 
spoke he stood a little way back from the counter, his 
chin up, his gaze barely missing the top of my hat, his 
nostrils seeming to contract with that expression of 
dubiousness assumed by delicate noses which sense, long 
before they encounter it, the aroma of unworthiness. 

"Not a room in the house," he said. Then, as though 
to forestall further parley, he turned and spoke with 
gracious lightness to one of his own rank and occupation 
who, at the request of my companion, was ascertaining 
whether letters were awaiting us. 

"But we telegraphed two days ago!" I protested des- 
perately. 

"Can't help it. Hardware Convention. Everything 
taken." 

Over my shoulder I heard from my companion a 
sound, half sigh, half groan, which echoed the cry of 
my own heart, 

"I felt this coming!" he murmured. "Did n't you no- 
tice all these people with ribbons on them ? There 's 
never any room in a hotel where everybody 's wearing 
ribbons. It 's like a horse show. They get the ribbons 
and we get the gate." 

406 



A YOUNG METROPOLIS 

"Surely," I faltered, "you can let us have one small 
room ?" 

"Impossible," he answered brightly. ''We 've turned 
away dozens of people this evening." 

"Then," I said, abandoning hope, "perhaps you will 
suggest some other hotel?" 

I once heard a woman, the most perfect parvenu I 
ever met, speak of her poor relations in a tone exactly 
similar to that in which the clerk now spoke the names 
of two hotels. Having spoken, he turned and passed be- 
hind the partition at one end of the marble counter. 

My companion and I stood there for a moment looking 
despondently at each other. Then, without a word, we 
retreated through that gorgeous lobby, feeling like sad 
remnants of a defeated Yankee army. 

Again we motored through the bright streets, but only 
to successive disappointments, for both hotels men- 
tioned by the austere clerk were "turning 'em away." 
Our chauffeur now came to our aid, mentioning several 
small hotels, and in one of these, the Granada, we were 
at last so fortunate as to find lodgings. 

"It begun to look like you 'd have to put up at the 
Roden," the chauffeur smiled as we took our bags out of 
the car and settled with him. 

"The Roden?" 

"Yes," he returned. "Best ventilated hotel in the 
United States." 

Next day when the Hotel Roden was pointed out to 
us we appreciated the witticism, for the Roden is — or 

407 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

was at the time of our visit — merely the steel skeleton 
of a building which, we were informed, had for some 
years stood unfinished owing to disagreements among 
those concerned with its construction. 

As for the Granada, though a modest place, it was 
new and clean ; the clerk was amiable, the beds comfort- 
able, and if our rooms were too small to admit our 
trunks, they were, at all events, outside rooms, each with 
a private bath, at a rate of $i per day apiece. Never 
in any hotel have I felt that I was getting so much for 
my money. 

Next morning, after breakfast, we set out to see the 
city. Having repeatedly heard of Birmingham as the 
"Pittsburgh of the South," we expected cold daylight 
to reveal the sooty signs of her industrialism, but in this 
we were agreeably disappointed. By day as well as by 
night the city, is pleasing to the eye, and it is a fact 
worth noting that the downtown buildings of Atlanta 
(which is not an industrial city) are streaked and dirty, 
whereas those of Birmingham are clean — the reason for 
this being that the mills and furnaces of Birmingham 
are far removed from the heart of the town, whereas 
locomotives belch black smoke into the very center of 
Atlanta's business and shopping district. 

Moreover, the metropolis of Alabama is better laid 
out than that of Georgia. The streets of Birmingham 
are wide, and the business part of the city, lying upon a 
flat terrain, is divided into large, even squares. From 
this district the chief residence section mounts by easy, 

408 



w 



a 










A YOUNG METROPOLIS 

graceful grades into the hills to the southward. Be- 
cause of these grades, and the curving drives which fol- 
low the contours of the hills, and the vistas of the lower 
city, and the good modern houses, and the lawns and 
trees and shrubbery and breezes, this Highlands region 
is reminiscent of a similar residence district in Portland, 
Oregon — which is to say that it is one of the most agree- 
able districts of the kind in the United States. 

Well up on the hillside, Highland Avenue winds a 
charming course between pleasant homes, with here and 
there a little residence park branching off to one side, 
and here and there a small municipal park occupying an 
angle formed by a sharp turn in the driveway; and if 
you follow the street far enough you will presently see 
the house of the Birmingham Country Club, standing 
upon its green hilltop, amidst rolling, partly wooded golf 
links, above the road. 

Nor is the Country Club at the summit of this range 
of hills. Back of it rise other roads, the most pic- 
turesque of them being Altamont Road, which runs to 
the top of Red Mountain, reaching a height about 
equivalent to that of the cornice line of Birmingham's 
tallest building. The houses of this region are built on 
streets which, like some streets of Portland, are ter- 
raced into the hillside, and the resident of an upper block 
can almost look down the chimneys of his neighbors on 
the block below. The view commanded from these 
mountain perches does not suggest that the lower city 
runs up into the Highlands. It seems to be a separate 

409 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

place, down in a distant valley, and the sense of its re- 
moteness is heightened by the thin veil of gray smoke 
which wafts from the tall smokestacks of far-off iron 
furnaces, softening the serrated outlines of the city and 
wrapping its tall buildings in the industrial equivalent 
for autumn haze. 

At night the scene from the Highlands is even more 
spectacular, for at brief intervals the blowing of a con- 
verter in some distant steel plant illuminates the heavens 
with a great hot glow, like that which rises and falls 
about the crater of a volcano in eruption. Thus the 
city's vast affairs are kept before it by day in a pillar of 
cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire. Iron and steel 
dominate Birmingham's mind, activities and life. The 
very ground of Red Mountain is red because of the iron 
ore that it contains, and those who reside upon the 
charming slopes of this hill do not own their land in fee 
simple, but subject always to the mineral rights of min- 
ing companies. 

The only other industry of Birmingham which Is to 
be compared, in magnitude or efficiency, with the steel 
industry is that of "cutting in" at dances. All through 
the South it is carried on, but whereas in such cities as 
Memphis, New Orleans and Atlanta, men show a little 
mercy to the stranger — realizing that, as he is pre- 
sumably unacquainted with all the ladies at a dance, he 
cannot retaliate In kind — Birmingham is merciless and 
prosecutes the pestilential practice unremittingly, even 
going so far as to apply the universal-service principle 

410 



A YOUNG METROPOLIS 

and call out her highschool youths to carry on the work. 
Before I went to certain dances in Birmingham I felt 
that high-school boys ought to be kept at home at night, 
but after attending these dances I realized that such 
restriction was altogether inadequate, and that the only 
way to deal with them effectively would be to pickle them 
in vitriol. 

Where, in other cities of the South, I have managed 
to dance as much as half a dance without interruption, I 
never danced more than twenty feet with one partner in 
Birmingham. Nor did my companion. 

Our host was energetic in presenting us to ladies of 
infinite pulchritude and State-wide terpsichorean reputa- 
tion, but we would start to tread a measure with them, 
only to have them swiftly snatched from us by some 
spindle-necked, long-wristed, big-boned, bowl-eared 
high-school youth, in a dinner suit which used to fit him 
when it was new, six months ago. 

As we would start to dance the lady would say : 

*'You-all ah strangehs, ah n't you?" 

We would reply that we were. 

"Wheh do you come from?" 

"New York." 

Then, because the Hardware Convention was being 
held in town at the time, she would continue : 

"Ah reckon you-all ah hahdware men?" 

But that was as far as the conversation ever got. 
Just about the time that she began to reckon we were 
hardware men a mandatory hand would be laid upon us, 

411 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

and before we had time to defend ourselves against the 
hardware charge, the lady would be wafted off in the 
arms of some predatory youth who ought to have been at 
home considering pons asinorimi. 

Had we indeed been hardware men, and had we had 
our hardware with us, they could have done with fewer 
teachers in the high schools of that city after the night 
of our first dance in Birmingham. 

Up in the hills, some miles back of the Country Club, 
on the banks of a large artificial lake, stands the new 
clubhouse of the Birmingham Motor and Country Club, 
and around the lake runs the club's two-and-a-half-mile 
speedway. Elsewhere is the Roebuck Golf Club, the 
links of which are admitted ("even in Atlanta!") to be 
excellent — the one possible objection to the course of the 
Birmingham Country Club being that it is suited only 
to play with irons. 

I mention these golfing matters not because they in- 
terest me, but because they may interest you. I am not 
a golfer. I played the game for two seasons; then T 
decided to try to lead a better life. The first time T 
played I did quite well, but thence onward my game 
declined until, toward the last, crowds would collect to 
hear me play. When I determined to abandon the game 
I did not burn my clubs or break them up, according to 
the usual custom, but instead gave them to a man upon 
whom I wished to retaliate because his dog had bitten 
a member of my family. 

412 



A YOUNG METROPOLIS 

Small wonder that all golf clubs have extensive bars ! 
It is not hard to understand why men who realize that 
they have become incurable victims of the insidious habit 
of golf should wish to drown the thought in drink. But 
in Birmingham they can't do it — not, at least, at bars. 
Alabama has beaten her public bars into soda foun- 
tains and quick-lunch rooms, and though her club bars 
still look like real ones, the drinks served are so soft that 
no splash occurs when reminiscent tears drop into them. 

When we were in Alabama each citizen who so de- 
sired was allowed by law to import from outside the 
State a small allotment of strong drink for personal use, 
but the red tape involved in this procedure had already 
discouraged all but the most ardent drinkers, and 
those found it next to impossible, even by hoarding their 
"lonesome quarts," and pooling supplies with their con- 
vivial friends, to provide sufficient alcoholic drink for 
a "real party." 

We met in Birmingham but one gentleman whose 
cellars seemed to be well stocked, and the tales of in- 
genuity and exertion by which he managed to secure 
ample supplies of liquor were such as to lead us to be- 
lieve that this matter had become, with him, an occupa- 
tion to which all other business must give second place. 

It was this gentleman who told us that, since the State 
went dry, the ancient form, "R. S. V. P.," on social in- 
vitations, had been revised to "B. W. H. P.," signifying, 
"bring whisky in hip pocket." 

To the "B. W. H. P." habit he himself strictly ad- 

413 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

hered. One night, when we chanced to meet him in a 
downtown club, he drew a flask from a hip pocket, and 
invited us to "have something." 

"What is it?" asked my companion. 

"Scotch." 

When my companion had helped himself he passed 
the flask to me, but I returned it to the owner, explain- 
ing that I did not drink Scotch whisky. 

"What do you drink?" he asked. 

"Bourbon." 

"Here it is," he returned, drawing a second flask from 
the other hip pocket. 

How well, too, do I remember the long, delightful 
evening upon which my companion and I sat in an At- 
lanta club with a group of the older members, the week 
before Georgia went bone dry. There, as in Alabama 
before 191 5, there had been pretended prohibition, but 
now the bars of leading clubs were being closed, and 
convivial men were looking into the future with de- 
spair. One of the gentlemen was a justice of the Su- 
preme Court of the State, and I remember his wistful 
declaration that prohibition would fall hardest upon the 
older men. 

"When a man is young," he said, "he can be lively and 
enjoy himself without drinking, because he is full of ani- 
mal spirits. But we older men are n't bubbling over 
with liveliness. We can't dance, or don't want to, and 
we lack the stimulus which comes of falling continually 
in love. My great pleasure is to sit of an evening, here 

414 



A YOUNG METROPOLIS 

at a table in the cafe of this ckib, conversing with my 
friends. That is where prohibition is going to hurt me. 
I shall not see my old friends any more." 

The others protested at this somber view, but the 
judge gravely shook his head, saying: "You don't be- 
lieve me, but I know whereof I speak, for I have been 
through something like this, in a minor way, before. 
A good many years ago I was one of a little group of 
congenial men to organize a small club. We had com- 
fortable quarters, and we used to drop in at night, much 
as we have been doing of late years here, and have the 
kind of talks that are tonic to the soul. Of course we 
had liquor in the club, but there came a time when, for 
some reason or other — I think it was some trouble over 
a license — we closed our bar. We did n't think it was 
going to make a great difference, but it did. The men 
began to stop coming in, and before long the club ceased 
to exist. 

'Tt won't be like that here. This club will go on. 
But we won't come here. We won't want to sit around 
a table, like this, and drink ginger ale and sarsaparilla; 
and even if we do, the talk won't be so good. The thing 
that makes me downcast is not that liquor is going, but 
that we are really parting this week. 

''Every one knows that the abuse of drink does harm 
in the world, but these pious prohibitionists are not of the 
temperament to understand how alcohol ministers to the 
esthetic side of certain natures. It gives us better com- 
panions and makes us better companions for others. It 

415 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

stimulates our minds, enhances our appreciations, sharp- 
ens our wit, loosens our tongues, and saves brilliant 
conversation from becoming a lost art." 

My sympathies went out to the judge. It has always 
seemed to me a pity that the liquor question has resolved 
itself into a fight between extremists — for I think the 
wine and beer people might survive if they were not tied 
up with the distillers, and I do not believe that any con- 
siderable evil comes of drinking wine or beer. 

Nevertheless it must be apparent to every one who 
troubles to investigate, that prohibition invariably works 
great good wherever it is made effective. Take, for 
example, Birmingham. 

There was one year — I believe it was 191 2 — when 
there was an average of more than one murder a day, 
for every working day in the year, in the county in 
which Birmingham is located. On one famous Satur- 
day night there were nineteen felonious assaults (six- 
teen by negroes and three by whites), from which about 
a dozen deaths resulted, two of those killed having been 
policemen. 

All this has changed with prohibition. Killings are 
now comparatively rare, arrests have diminished to less 
than a third of the former average, whether for grave 
or petty oifenses, and the receiving jail, which was for- 
merly packed like a pigpen every Saturday night, now 
stands almost empty, while the city jail, which used 
continually to house from 120 to 150 offenders, has 
diminished its average population to 30 or 35. 

416 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 
BUSY BIRMINGHAM 

THE fact that a man may shut off his motor and 
coast downhill from his home to his office in 
the lower part of Birmingham, is not without 
symbolism. Birmingham is all business. If I were to 
personify the place, it would be in the likeness of a man 
I know — a big, powerful fellow with an honest blue 
eye and an expression in which self-confidence, ambi- 
tion, and power are blended. Like Birmingham, this 
man is a little more than forty years of age. Like Bir- 
mingham, he has built up a large business of his own. 
And, like Birmingham, he is a little bit naive in his pride 
of success. His life is divided between his office and 
his home, and it would be difficult to say for which his 
devotion is the greater. He talks business with his wife 
at breakfast and dinner, and on their Sunday walks. 
He brings his papers home at night and goes over them 
with her, for, though her specialty is bringing up the 
children, she is deeply interested in his business and 
often makes suggestions which he follows. This causes 
him to admire her intensely, which he would not neces- 
sarily do were she merely a good wife and mother. 

417 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

He has no hobbies or pastimes. True, he plays golf, 
but with him golf is not a diversion. He plays because 
he finds the exercise increases his efficiency ("efficiency" 
is perhaps his favorite word), and because many of his 
commercial associates are golfers, and he can talk busi- 
ness with them on the links. 

His house is pleasant and stands upon a good-sized 
city lot. It is filled with very shiny mahogany furniture 
and strong-colored portieres and sofa cushions. It is 
rather more of a house than he requires, for his tastes 
are simple, but he has a feeling that he ought to have a 
large house, for the same reason that he and his wife 
ought to dress expensively — that is, out of respect, as it 
were, to his business. 

One of his chief treasures is an automatic piano, 
upon which he rolls off selections from Wagner's operas. 
He likes the music of the great German because, as he 
has often told me, it stirs his imagination, thereby help- 
ing him to solve business problems and make business 
plans. 

The thing he most abhors is general conversation, and 
he is never so amusing — so pathetically and uncon- 
sciously amusing^as when trying to take part in gen- 
eral conversation and at the same time to conceal the 
writhings of his tortured spirit. There is but one thing 
which will drive him to attempt the feat, and that is the 
necessity of making himself agreeable to some man, or 
the wife of some man, from whom he wishes to get busi- 
ness. 

418 



BUSY BIRMINGHAM 

The census of 19 lo gave Birmingham a population of 
132,000, and it is estimated that since that time the popu- 
lation has increased by 50,000. Birmingham not only 
knows that it is growing, but believes in trying to make 
ready in advance for future growth. It gives one the 
impression that it is rather ahead of its housing prob- 
lems than behind them. Its area, for instance, is about 
as great as that of Boston or Cleveland, and its hotels 
may be compared with the hotels of those cities. If It 
has not so many clubs as Atlanta, it has, at least, all the 
clubs it needs ; and if it has not so many skyscrapers as 
New York, it has several which would fit nicely into the 
Wall Street district. Moreover, the tall buildings of 
Birmingham lose nothing in height by contrast with the 
older buildings, three or four stories high, which sur- 
round them, giving the business district something of 
that look which hangs about a boy who has outgrown 
his clothing. Nor are the vehicles and street crowds, al- 
together in consonance, as yet, with the fine office build- 
ings of the city, for many of the motors standing at the 
curb have about them that gray, rural look which comes 
of much mud and infrequent washing, and the idlers 
who lean against the rich facades of granite and marble 
are entirely out of the picture, for they look precisely 
like the idlers who lean against the wooden posts of 
country railroad station platforms. 

Such curious contrasts as these may be noted every- 
where. For instance, Birmingham has been so busy 
paving the streets that it seems quite to have forgotten 

419 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

to put up street signs. Also, not far from the majestic 
Tutwiler Hotel, and the imposing apartment building 
called the Ridgely, the front of which occupies a full 
block, is a park so ill kept that it would be a disgrace 
to the city but for the obvious fact that the city is grow- 
ing and wide-awake, and will, of course, attend to the 
park when it can find the time. Here are, I believe, the 
only public monuments Birmingham contains. One is 
a Confederate monument in the form of an obelisk, and 
the other two are statues erected in memory of Mary 
A. Cahalan, for many years principal of the Powell 
School, and of William Elias B. Davis, a distinguished 
surgeon. Workers in these fields are too seldom hon- 
ored in this way, and the spirit which prompted the 
erection of these monuments is particularly creditable; 
sad to say, however, both effigies are wretchedly placed 
and are in themselves exceedingly poor things. Art is 
something, indeed, about which Birmingham has much 
to learn. So far as I could discover, no such thing as an 
art museum has been contemplated. But here again the 
critic should remember that, whereas art is old, Bir- 
mingham is young. She is as yet in the stage of devel- 
opment at which cities think not of art museums, but of 
municipal auditoriums; and with the latter subject, at 
least, she is now concerning herself. 

Even in the city's political life contrasts are not want- 
ing, for though the town is Republican in sentiment, it 
proves itself southern by voting the Democratic ticket, 
and it is interesting to note further that the commission 

420 



BUSY BIRMINGHAM 

by which it is governed had as one of its five members, 
when we were there, a Socialist. 

Another curious and individual touch is contributed 
by the soda-fountain lunch rooms which abound in the 
city, and which, I judge, arrived with the disappear- 
ance of barroom lunch counters. In connection with 
many of the downtown soda fountains there are cooking 
arrangements, and business lunches are served. 

The roads leading out of the city in various direc- 
tions have many dangerous grade crossings, and acci- 
dents must be of common occurrence. At all events, I 
have never known a city in which cemeteries and under- 
taking establishments were so widely advertised. In 
the street cars, for instance, I observed the cheerful 
placards of one Wallace Johns, undertaker, who 
promises ''all the attention you would expect from a 
friend," and I was informed that Mr. Johns possesses 
business cards (for restricted use only) bearing the gay 
legend: 'T '11 get you yet!" 

As to schools the city is well off. Dr. J. H. 
Phillips, superintendent of public schools, has occupied 
his post probably as long as any school superintendent in 
the country. He organized the city school system in 
1883, beginning with seven teachers, as against 750 now 
employed. The colored schools are reported to be better 
than in most southern cities. 

Of the general status of the negro in Birmingham 
I cannot speak with authority. As in Atlanta, negroes 
are sometimes required to use separate elevators in of- 

421 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

fice buildings, and, as everywhere south of Washing- 
ton, the Birmingham street cars give one end to whites 
and the other to negroes. But whereas negroes use 
the back of the car in Atlanta, they use the front in 
Birmingham. It was attempted, at one time, to reverse 
this order, for reasons having to do with draft and 
ventilation, but the people of Birmingham had become 
accustomed to the existing arrangement and objected 
to the change. "After all," one gentleman said to me, 
in speaking of this matter, "it is not important which 
end of the car is given to the nigger. The main point is 
that he must sit where he is told." 

The means by which the negro vote is eliminated in 
various Southern States are generally similar, though 
Alabama has, perhaps, been more thorough in the mat- 
ter than some other States. The importance of this 
issue to the southern white man is very great, for if all 
negroes were allowed to vote the control of certain 
States would be in negro hands. To the Southerner 
such an idea is intolerable, and it is my confident belief 
that if the State of Alabama were resettled by men 
from Massachusetts, and the same problems were pre- 
sented to those men, they would be just as quick as the 
white Alabamans of to-day to find means to suppress 
the negro vote. With all my heart I wish that such 
an exchange of citizens might temporarily be effected, 
for when the immigrants from Massachusetts moved 
back to their native New England, after an experience 
of the black belt, they would take with them an under- 

422 



BUSY BIRMINGHAM 

standing of certain aspects of the negro problem 
which they have never understood; an understanding 
which, had they possessed it sixty or seventy years ago, 
might have brought about the freeing of slaves by gov- 
ernment purchase — a course which Lincoln advo- 
cated and which would probably have prevented 
the Civil War, and thereby saved millions upon 
millions of money, to say nothing of countless 
lives. Had they even understood the problems of the 
South at the end of the Civil War, the horrors of Recon- 
struction might have been avoided, and I cannot too 
often reiterate that, but for Reconstruction we should 
not be perplexed, to-day, by the unhappy, soggy mass 
of political inertia known as the Solid South. 

I asked a former State official how the negro vote 
had been eliminated in Alabama. *'At first," he said, 
"we used to kill them to keep them from voting; when 
we got sick of doing that we began to steal their bal- 
lots ; and when stealing their ballots got to troubling our 
consciences we decided to handle the matter legally, fix- 
ing it so they could n't vote." 

I inquired as to details. He explained. 

It seems that in 1901 a constitutional convention 
was held, at which it was enacted that, in order to be 
eligible for life to vote, citizens must register during 
the next two years. There were, however, certain qual- 
ifications prescribed for registration. A man must be 
of good character, and must have fought in a war, or 
be the descendant of a person who had fought. This 

423 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

enactment, known as the ''grandfather clause," went 
far toward the eUmination of the negro. As an addi- 
tional safeguard, however, an educational clause was 
added, but the educational requirement did not become 
effective at once, as that would have made illiterate 
whites ineligible as voters. Not until the latter were 
safely registered under the "grandfather clause," was 
the educational clause applied, and as, under this clause, 
the would-be voter must read and write to the satisfac- 
tion of his examiner, the negro's chance to get suffrage 
was still more reduced. 

The United States Supreme Court has, I believe, held 
that the educational clause does not constitute race dis- 
crimination. 

As though the above measures were not sufficient, it 
is further required that, in order to vote at November 
elections in Alabama, voters must pay a small volun- 
tary poll tax. This tax, however, must be paid each 
year before February first — that is, about nine months 
before elections actually take place. The negro has 
never been distinguished for his foresightedness with a 
dollar, and, to make matters harder for him, this tax is 
cumulative from the year 1901, so that a man who 
wishes to begin to vote this year, and can qualify in 
other respects, must pay a tax amounting to nearly 
twenty dollars. 

These measures give Alabama, as my informant put 
it, a 'Very exclusive electorate." With a population 
of approximately two millions, the greatest number of 

424 



^ i^%\4\ 







Birmingham practices unremittingly the pestilential habit of "cutting in" at 

dances 



BUSY BIRMINGHAM 

votes ever cast by the State was 125,000. Of this num- 
ber, 531 votes were those of negroes, ''representing" a 
colored population of 840,000! 

The gentleman who explained these matters also told 
me a story illustrative of the old-time Southerner's atti- 
tude toward the negro in politics. 

During Reconstruction, when Alabama's Legislature 
was about one-third white and two-thirds negro, a fine 
old gentleman who had been a slaveholder and was an 
experienced parliamentarian, was attempting to preside 
over the Legislature. In this he experienced much diffi- 
culty, his greatest bete noir being a negro member, 
full of oratory, who continually interrupted other speak- 
ers. 

Realizing that this was a part of the new order of 
things, the presiding officer tried not to allow his irri- 
tation to get the better of him, and to silence the objec- 
tionable man in parliamentary fashion. "The member 
will kindly come to order!" he repeated over and over, 
rapping with his gavel. "The member will kindly come 
to order !" 

After this had gone on for some time without effect, 
the old gentleman's patience became exhausted. Lie 
laid down his gavel, arose to his feet, glared at the irre- 
pressible member, and, shaking his finger savagely, 
shouted: "Sit down, you blankety-blank black blank- 
ety-blank !" 

Whereupon the negro dropped instantly to his seat 
and was no more heard from. 

425 



CHAPTER XXXIX 
AN ALLEGORY OF ACHIEVEMENT 

TO visit Birming-ham without seeing an iron and 
steel plant would be like visiting Rome without 
seeing the Forum. Consequently my compan- 
ion and I made application for permission to go through 
the Tennessee Coal, Iron, & Railroad Company's 
plant, at Ensley, on the outskirts of the city. When 
the permission was refused us we attacked from an- 
other angle — using influence — and were refused again. 
Next we called upon a high official of the company, and 
(as we had, of course, done in making our previous re- 
quests for admission to the plant) explained our errand. 

Though this gentleman received us with the utmost 
courtesy, he declared that the company desired no pub- 
licity, and plainly indicated that he was not disposed to 
let us into the plant. 

'T '11 tell you what the trouble is," said my compan- 
ion to me. ''This company is a part of the United 
States Steel Corporation, and in the old muckraking 
days it was thoroughly raked. They think that we have 
come down here full of passionate feeling over the poor, 
downtrodden workingman and the great, greedy oc- 
topus." 

''What makes you think that ?" 

426 



AN ALLEGORY OF ACHIEVEMENT 

"Well, we are a writer and an artist. Lots of writers 
and artists have made good livings by teaching maga- 
zine readers that it is dishonest for a corporation, or a 
corporation official, to prosper ; that the way to integrity 
is through insolvency; that the word 'company' is a 
term of reproach, while 'corporation' is a foul epithet, 
and 'trust' blasphemy." 

"What shall we do?" 

"We must make it clear to these people," he said, 
"that we have no mission. We must satisfy them that 
we are not reformers — that we did n't come to dig out a 
red-hot story, but to see red-hot rails rolled out." 

Pursuing this course, we were successful. All that 
any official of the company required of us was that we 
be open-minded. The position of the company, when 
we came to understand it, was simply that it did not wish 
to facilitate the work of men who came down with pen- 
cils, paper, and preconceived "views," deliberately to 
play the great American game of "swat the corpora- 
tion." 

Surely there is not in the world an industry which, 
for sheer pictorial magnificence, rivals the modern 
manufacturing of steel. In the first place, the scale of 
everything is inexpressibly stupendous. To speak of a 
row of six blast furnaces, with mouths a himdred feet 
above the ground, and chimneys rising perhaps another 
hundred feet above these mouths, is not, perhaps, im- 
pressive, but to look at such a row of furnaces, to see 

427 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

their fodder of ore, dolomite, and coke brought in by 
train loads; to see it fed to them by the "skip"; to hear 
them roar continually for more; to feel the savage heat 
generated within their bodies ; to be told in shouts, above 
the din, something of what is going on inside these 
vast, voracious, savage monsters, and to see them drip- 
ping their white-hot blood when they are picked by a 
long steel bar in the hands of an atom of a man — this 
is to witness an almost terrifying allegory of mankind's 
achievement. 

The gas generated by blast furnaces is used in part in 
the hot-blast stoves — gigantic tanks from which hot air, 
at very high pressure, is admitted to the furnaces them- 
selves, and is also used to develop steam for the blow- 
ing engines and other auxiliaries. In the furnaces the 
molten iron, because of its greater specific gravity, set- 
tles to the bottom, while the slag floats to the top. The 
slag, by the way, is not, as I had supposed, altogether 
worthless, but is used for railroad ballast and in the 
manufacture of cement. 

The molten iron drawn from the blast furnaces runs 
in glittering rivulets (which, at a distance of twenty 
or thirty feet, burn the face and the eyes), into ladle cars 
which are like a string of devils' soup bowls, mounted 
on railroad trucks ready to be hauled away by a locomo- 
tive and served at a banquet in hell. 

That is not what happens to them, however. The 
locomotive takes them to another part of the plant, and 
their contents, still molten, is poured into the mixers. 

428 



AN ALLEGORY OF ACHIEVEMENT 

These are gigantic caldrons as high as houses, which 
stand in rows in an open-sided steel shed, and the chief 
purpose of them is to keep the "soup" hot until it is 
required for the converters — when it is again poured off 
into ladle cars and drawn away. 

The converters are in still another part of the 
grounds. They are huge, pear-shaped retorts, resem- 
bling in their action those teakettles which hang on 
stands and are poured by being tilted. But a million 
teakettles could be lost in one converter, and the boiling 
water from a million teakettles, poured into a converter, 
would be as one single drop of ice water let fall into a 
red-hot stove. 

In the converters the metalloids — silicon, manganese, 
and carbon — are burned out of the iron under a flaming 
heat which, by means of high air pressure, is brought 
to a temperature of about 3400 degrees. It is the blow- 
ing of these converters, and the occasional pouring of 
them, which throws the Vesuvian glow upon the skies 
of Birmingham at night. The heat they give off is be- 
yond description. Several hundred feet away you feel 
it smiting viciously upon your face, and the concrete 
flooring of the huge shed in which they stand is so hot as 
to burn your feet through the soles of your shoes. 

The most elaborate display of fireworks ever devised 
by Mr. Pain would be but a poor thing compared with 
the spectacle presented when a converter is poured. 
The whole world glows with golden heat, and is filled 
with an explosion of brilliant sparks, and as the molten 

429 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

metal passes out into the sunlight that light is by con- 
trast so feeble that it seems almost to cast a shadow 
over the white-hot vats of iron. 

Next come the tilting open-hearth furnaces, where the 
iron is subjected to the action of lime at a very high 
temperature. This removes the phosphorus and leaves 
a bath of commercially pure iron which is then "teemed" 
into a hundred-ton ladle, wherein it is treated in such 
a way as to give it the properties required in the fin- 
ished steel. What these properties may be, depends, of 
course, upon the purpose to which the steel is to be put. 
Rails, for example, must, above all, resist abrasion, and 
consequently have a higher carbon content than, say, 
reinforcing bars for concrete work. To obtain various 
qualities in steel are added carbon, ferro-manganese, or 
ferro-silicon in proportions differing according to re- 
quirements. 

In the next process steel ingots are made. I lost track 
of the exact detail of this, but I remember seeing the 
ingots riding about in their own steel cars, turning to 
an orange color as they cooled, and I remember seeing 
them pounded by a hammer that stood up in the air 
like an elevated railroad station, and I know that pretty 
soon they got into the blooming mill and were rolled 
out into "blooms," after which they were handled by a 
huge contrivance like a thumb and forefinger of steel 
which — though the blooms weigh five tons apiece — 
picked them up much as you might pick up a stick of red 
candy. 

430 



AN ALLEGORY OF ACHIEVEMENT 

Still orange-hot, the blooms find their way to the roll- 
ing mill, where they go dashing back and forth upon 
rollers and between rollers — the latter working in pairs 
like the rollers of large wringers, squeezing the blooms, 
in their successive passages, to greater length and 
greater thinness, until at last they take the form of long, 
red, glowing rails ; after which they are sawed off, to the 
accompaniment of a spray of white sparks, into rail 
lengths, and run outside to cool. And I may add that, 
w^hile there is more brilliant heat to be seen in many 
other departments of the plant, there is no department 
in which the color is more beautiful than in the piles 
of rails on the cooling beds — some of them still red as 
they come from the rollers, others shading off to rose 
and pink, and finally to their normal cold steel-gray. 

Presently along comes a great electromagnet; from 
somewhere in the sky it drops down and touches the 
rails; when it rises bunches of them rise with it, and, 
after sailing through the air, are gently deposited upon 
flat cars. Here, even after the current is shut off, some 
of them may try to stick to the magnet, as though fearing 
to go forth into the world. If so, it gives them a little 
shake, whereupon they let go, and it travels back to get 
more rails and load them on the cars. 

Iron ore, coal, and limestone, the three chief materials 
used in the making of steel, are all found in the hills 
in the immediate vicinity of Birmingham. T am told 
that there is no other place in the world where the three 
exist so close together. That is an impressive fact, but 

431 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

one grows so accustomed to impressive facts, while pass- 
ing through this plant, that one ceases to be impressed, 
becoming merely dazed. 

If I were asked to mention one especially striking 
item out of all that welter, I should think of many things 
— things having to do with vastness, with gigantic move- 
ments and mutations, with Niagara-like noises, with 
great bursts of flame suggesting fallen fragments from 
the sun itself — but above all I think that I should speak 
of the apparent absence of men. 

There were some four thousand men in the plant, I 
believe, at the time we were there, but excepting when 
a shift changed, and a great army passed out through 
the gates, we never saw a crowd ; indeed I hardly think 
we saw a group of any size. Here and there two or 
three men would be doing something — something which, 
probably, we did not understand; in the window of a 
locomotive cab, or that of a traveling crane, we would 
see a man ; we kept passing men as we went along ; and 
sometimes as we looked from a high perch over the in- 
terior of one of the great sheds, we would be vaguely 
conscious of men scattered about the place. But they 
were very small and gray and inconspicuous dots upon 
the surface of great things going on — going on, seem- 
ingly by themselves, with a sort of mad, mechanical, ma- 
jestic, molten sweep. 

At this time, when the great efficient organization 
started by Bismarck is being devoted entirely to destruc- 

432 



AN ALLEGORY OF ACHIEVEMENT 

tion, it is interesting to recall that the idea of indus- 
trial welfare work originated in Germany during the 
period of Bismarckian reorganization. So, paradox- 
ically, the very forces which, on one hand, were building 
towards the new records for the extinction of life es- 
tablished in the present war, were, upon the other hand, 
developing plans for the safeguarding of life and for 
making it worth living — plans which have enormously 
affected the industrial existence of the civilized world. 

The broad theory of industrial welfare work was 
brought to this country by engineers, chemists, and 
workmen who had resided in Germany; but, where this 
work developed over there along cooperative lines, it has 
remained for Great Britain and the United States to 
work it out in a more individualistic way. 

In this country welfare work has come as a logical 
part of the general industrial development. The first 
step in this development was the assembling of small, 
weak industrial units into large, powerful, effective units 
— that is to say, the formation of great corporations 
and trusts. The second step was the coordination of 
these great industrial alliances for ''efficiency." The 
third step was the achievement of material success. 

When our great corporations were in their formative 
period, effort was concentrated on making them success- 
ful, but with success came thoughts of other things. It 
began to be seen, for example, that whereas the old 
small employer of labor came into personal contact with 
his handful of workmen, and could himself supervise 

433 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

their welfare, some plan must now be devised for doing 
this work in a large, corporate way. 

Thus welfare work developed in the United States, 
and it is interesting to observe, now, that many of our 
great corporations are finding time and funds to ex- 
pend upon purely aesthetic improvements, and that, in 
the construction of the most modern American indus- 
trial plants, architects, landscape gardeners, and engi- 
neering men work in cooperation, so that, instead of be- 
ing lopsided, the developments are harmonious and 
oftentimes beautiful. 

On work calculated to prevent accidents in mines, not 
only the Tennessee Coal, Iron, & Railroad Company, 
but all the leading mining companies in the State join 
for conference. As a result the number of accidents 
steadily decreases. Nine years ago one man was killed, 
on an average, for every 100,000 tons of iron ore raised. 
The record at the time of our visit was one man to 450,- 
000 tons. In the coal mines, where nine years ago one 
man was killed for every 75,000 tons raised, the recent 
record is one man for 650,000 tons. 

In 1914, 126 men were killed in the coal mines of Ala- 
bama. In 191 5, though the tonnage was about the 
same, this number was reduced to 63, which was a 
record. All this is the result of safety work. 

"Aside from humane considerations," said an official 
of the Tennessee Company, "this concern realizes that 
the man is the most valuable machine it has." 

This gentleman was one of the ablest men we met 

434 



AN ALLEGORY OF ACHIEVEMENT 

in the South. While taking us through the company's 
plant, and explaining to us the various operations, he 
was interesting, but the real enthusiasm of the man did 
not crop out until he took us to the company's villages 
and showed us what was being done for the benefit of 
operatives and their families, and, of course, for the 
benefit of the company as well — for he was a corpora- 
tion official of the modern school, and he knew that by 
benefiting its men a corporation necessarily benefits it- 
self. 

The story of the Tennessee Company's work among 
its employees, which began about five years ago, some 
time after the company was taken over by the United 
States Steel Corporation, is too great to be more than 
touched on here. In the department of health thirty- 
six doctors, sixteen nurses, and a squad of sanitary in- 
spectors are employed. The department of social sci- 
ence covers education, welfare, and horticulture. To 
me the work of these departments was a revelation. 
Each camp has a first-rate hospital, each has its schools 
and guildhall, and everything is run as only an efificiently 
managed corporation can run things. 

The Docena Village is less like one's idea of a coal 
"camp" than of a pretty suburban development, or a 
military post, with officers' houses built around a pa- 
rade. The grounds are well kept; there is a tennis 
court with vine-clad trellises about it, a fine playground 
for children, pretty brick walks, with splendid trees to 
shade them ; and there is a brick schoolhouse which is a 

435 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

better building, better equipped, better lighted, and, 
above all, better ventilated than the schools I attended in 
my boyhood. 

Near the school is the guildhall, which is used for re- 
ligious services, meetings, and entertainments. And 
best of all, perhaps, the houses are not the rows 
of sad, unpainted cabins one remembers having seen 
in western mining camps, but are pretty cottages, 
touched with a slight architectural variety, and with 
little variations of color, so that each home has indi- 
viduality. 

The schools are financed partly by the company and 
partly by the parents of the three thousand scholars. 
The teachers are, for the most part, graduates of lead- 
ing colleges — Smith, Wellesley, Vassar, the University 
of Chicago, the University of Wisconsin — and edu- 
cational work of great variety is carried on, including 
instruction in English for foreign employees, and domes- 
tic-science classes for women — separate establishments, 
of course, for whites and blacks, for the color line is 
drawn in southern mining camps as elsewhere. Ne- 
groes are, however, better provided for by the corpora- 
tion than by most southern municipalities, both in the 
way of living conditions and of education. 

On the whole, I believe that a child who grows up in 
the Docena Village, and is educated there, has actually 
a better chance than one who grows up in most Ala- 
bama towns, or, for the matter of that, in towns in 
any other State which has not compulsory education. 

436 




M 
O 



AN ALLEGORY OF ACHIEVEMENT 

Moreover, I doubt that there is in all Alabama another 
kindergarten as truly charming as the one we visited at 
Docena, or that there is, in the State, a schoolhouse of 
the same size which is as perfect as the one we saw in 
that camp. 

In another camp old houses have been remodeled, giv- 
ing practical demonstration of what can be done in the 
w^ay of making a hovel into a pretty home by the intel- 
ligent use of a little lattice-work, a little paint, and a 
few vines and flowers. Old boarding-houses in this 
neighborhood have been converted into community 
houses, with entertainment halls, shower baths, and 
other conveniences for the men and their families. 
Thus tests are being made to discover whether it is pos- 
sible to encourage among certain classes of foreign la- 
borers, whose habits of life have not, to put it mildly, 
been of the tidiest, some appreciation of the standard 
of civilization represented by clean, pretty cottages, 
pleasant meeting houses, and shower baths. 

I have not told about the billiard tables, bowling al- 
leys, and game rooms of the clubs, nor about the model 
rooms fitted up to show housewives how they may make 
their homes attractive at but slight expense, nor about 
the annual medical examination of the children, nor 
about the company dentists who charge their patients 
only for the cost of gold actually used, nor about the 
fine company store at Edgewater Mine, nor about the 
excellent meats supplied by the company butchers, nor 
about the low prices of supplies, nor about the effort to 

437 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

discourage employees from buying cheap furniture at 
high prices on the installment plan, nor, above all, about 
the clean, decent, happy look of the families we chanced 
to see. 

Even had I the space in which to tell of these things, 
it is perhaps wiser that I refrain from doing so. For 
I am aware that in speaking anything but ill of a great 
corporaton I have scandalously outraged precedent. 
Nor does it argue well for my powers of observation, 
or those of my companion. I feel confident that where 
our limited visions perceived only prosperity and con- 
tentment, certain of my brother writers, and his brother 
illustrators would, in our places, have rent the thin, va- 
porish veil of apparent corporate kindliness, and found 
such foul shame, such hideous malignity, such grasping, 
grubby greed, such despicable soul-destroying despot- 
ism, as to shock the simple nature of a chief of the old- 
time Russian Secret Police. 

It shames me to think what my friend Lincoln Stef- 
fens could have done had he but enjoyed my opportuni- 
ties. It shames me to think what John Reed or other 
gifted writers for 'The Masses" could have done. 
And I should think that Wallace Morgan would 
writhe with shame. For, where Art Young would have 
seen heavy- jowled, pig-eyed Capital, in a silk hat and 
a checked suit, whirling a cruel knout over the broad 
and noble (but bent and shuddering) back of Labor — 
where Boardman Robinson would have found a mother, 
her white, drawn face half hidden by the shoddy shawl 

438 



AN ALLEGORY OF ACHIEVEMENT 

of black, to which cHng the hands of her emaciated 
brood — what has Wallace Morgan seen ? 

A steel-plant in operation. A company steel-plant! 
A corporation steel-plant ! A trust steel-plant. 

Yet never so much as a starving cat or a pile of gar- 
bage in the foreground! 



439 



CHAPTER XL 
THE ROAD TO ARCADY 

BEFORE we saw the train which was to take us 
from Birmingham to Columbus, Mississippi, we 
began to sense its quahty. When we attempted 
to purchase parlor car seats of the ticket agent at the 
Union Station and were informed by him that our train 
carried no parlor car, it seemed to us that his manner 
was touched with cynicism, and this impression was con- 
firmed by his reply to our further timid inquiry as to a 
dining car : 

''Where do you gentlemen reckon you 're a-goin' to, 
anyhow?" 

Presently we passed through the gate and better 
understood the nature of the ticket agent's thoughts. 
The train consisted of several untidy day coaches, the 
first a Jim Crow car, the others for white people. 
The negro car was already so full that many of its oc- 
cupants had to stand in the aisle, but this did not seem 
to trouble them, for all were gabbling happily, and the 
impression one got, in glancing through the door, was 
of many sets of handsome white teeth displayed in as 
many dark grinning faces. There are innumerable 

440 



THE ROAD TO ARCADY 

things for which we cannot envy the negro, but neither 
his teeth nor his good nature are among them. 

It was Saturday afternoon, and the two or three other 
cars, though not overcrowded, were well filled with 
people from the neighboring mining towns who were 
going home after having spent the morning shopping in 
the city. Almost all our fellow passengers carried 
packages, many had infants with them, and we were 
struck with the fact that the complexions of these peo- 
ple suggested a diet of pie — fried pie, if there be 
such a thing — that a peculiarly high percentage of 
them suffered from diseases of the eye, and that the per- 
vading smell of the car in which we sat was of oranges, 
bananas, babies, and overheated adults. 

A young mother in the seat in front of us had with 
her three small children, the youngest an infant in arms. 
She was feeding a banana to the second child, who 
looked about two years old. Behind us a clean, capable- 
looking woman talked in a broad Scottish dialect with 
another housewife whose jargon was that of the moun- 
taineers. 

The region through which the train presently began 
to wind its way was green and hilly, and there were 
many stops at villages, all of them mining camps ap- 
parently, made up of shabby little cabins scattered hel- 
ter-skelter upon the hillsides. In many of the cabin 
doorways mothers lingered with their broods watching 
the train, and on all the station platforms stood crowds 
of idlers — men, women, and children, negro and white 

441 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

— many of the men stamped, by their coal-begrimed 
faces, their stained overalls, and the lamps above the 
visors of their caps, as mine workers. 

After a time my companion and I moved to the ex- 
ceedingly dirty smoking room at the end of the car, 
where we sat and listened to the homely conversation 
of a group of men who seemed not only to know one an- 
other, but to know the same people in towns along the 
line. Between stations they gossiped, smoked, chewed, 
spat, and swore together like so many New England 
crossroad sages, but when the train stopped they gave 
encouraging attention to the droll performances of one 
of their number, a shaggy, unshaven, rawboned man, of 
middle age, gray-haired and collarless, who sat near the 
window and uttered convincing imitations of the sounds 
made by chickens, roosters, pigs, goats, and crows. 

The platform crowds, the negroes in particular, were 
mystified and lured by this animal chorus coming from 
a passenger coach. On hearing it they would first gaze 
in astonishment at the car, then edge up to the windows 
and doors, and peer in with eyes solemn, round, and 
wondering, only to be more amazed than ever by the 
discovery that the car housed neither bird nor beast. 
This bucolic comedy was repeated at every station until 
we reached Wyatt, Alabama, where our gifted fellow 
traveler arose, pointed his collar button toward the door, 
bade us farewell, and departed, saying that he was going 
to ''walk over to Democrat." 

Presently the conductor dropped in for a chat, in the 

442 



THE ROAD TO ARCADY 

course o£ which he informed the assembly that a certain 
old lady in one of the towns along the way had died 
the night before, whereupon our companions of the 
smoking room, all of whom seemed to have known the 
old lady well, held a protracted discussion of her history 
and traits. 

After a time my companion and I put in a few ques- 
tions about the State of Mississippi. Boiled down, the 
principal information w^e gathered was as follows : 

By the 191 o census Mississippi had not one city of 
25,000 inhabitants. Meridian, with 23,000, was (and 
probably still is) her metropolis, with Jackson and 
Vicksburg, cities of about 20,000 each, following. The 
entire State has but fifteen cities having a population of 
5000 or more, so that, of a total of about a million and 
three-quarters of people in the State (more than half of 
them colored), only about one-tenth live in towns with a 
population of 5000 or over. 

After a little visit the conductor went away. Now 
and then a man would leave us and get off at a station, 
or some new passenger would join our group. Pres- 
ently I found myself thinking about dinner, and asked a 
man wearing an electric-blue cap if he knew what pro- 
vision was made for the evening meal. 

Before he could reply the train boy, who had come 
into the smoking room a few minutes before, piped up. 
He was a train boy of a type I had supposed extinct : the 
kind of train boy one might have encountered on almost 
any second-rate train twenty years ago. — a bold, im- 

443 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

pudent young smartaleck, full of insistent salesmanship 
and obnoxious conversation. He declared that dinner 
was not to be had, and that the only sustenance available 
en route consisted in the uninviting assortment of fruit, 
nuts, candy, and sweet tepid beverages contained in his 
basket. 

P'^ortunately for us, the man we had addressed knew 
better. 

''What do you want to lie like that for, boy?" he de- 
manded. ''You know as weU as I do that the brakeman 
takes on five boxes of lunch at Covin." 

"Well," said the boy, with a grin, "I gotta sell 
things, ain't I? The brakeman hadn't oughta have 
that graft anyhow. I'd oughta have it. He gets 
them lunches fer two bits and sells 'em for thirty-five 
cents." Far from feeling abashed, he was pleased with 
himself. 

"Folks is funny people," remarked a man with a 
weather-beaten face who sat in the corner seat, and 
seemed to be addressing no one in particular. "I know 
a boy that 's going to git hung some day. And when 
they 've got the noose rigged nice around his neck, and 
everything ready, and the trap a-waitin' to be sprung, 
why, then that boy is goin' to be so sorry for hisself that 
he won't hardly know what to do. He '11 say : T ain't 
never had no chance in life, I ain't. The world ain't 
never used me right.' . . . Yes, folks is funny people." 

After this soliloquy there occurred a brief silence in 

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THE ROAD TO ARCADY 

the smoking room, and presently the train boy took up 
his basket and went upon his way. 

"You say they take on the lunches at Covin now?" 
one of the passengers asked of the man in the electric- 
blue cap. 

"Yes." 

''What 's become of old man Whitney, over to Fay- 
etteville?" 

"They used to git lunches off of him," replied the 
other, "but the old man was n't none too dependable. 
Now and then he 'd oversleep, and folks on the 5 a. m. 
out of Columbus was like to starve for breakfast." 

"Right smart shock-headed boy the old man 's got," 
put in another. "The old man gives 'im anything he 
wants. He wanted a motorcycle, and the old man give 
'im one. Then he wanted one of them hot-candy ma- 
chines; they cost about two hundred and fifty dollars, 
but the old man give it to 'im just the same." 

"The kid went to San Francisco with it, didn't he?" 
asked the man with the electric-blue cap. 

"He started to go there," replied the former speaker, 
"but he only got as fur as Little Rock; then he come on 
back home, and the old man bought 'im a wireless-tele- 
graph plant. Yeaup! That boy gets messages right 
outa the air — from Washington, D. C, and Berlin, and 
every place. The Govamunt don't allow 'im to tell you 
much of it. He tells a little, though — ^just to give you a 
notion." 

445 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

So, through the five-hour ride the conversation ran. 
Several times the talk drifted to politics and to the Euro- 
pean War, but the politics discussed were local and lop- 
sided, and the war was all too clearly regarded as some- 
thing interesting but vague and remote. On the en- 
tire journey not one word was spoken indicating that the 
people of this section had the least grasp on any national 
question, or that they were considering national ques- 
tions, or that they realized what the war in Europe is 
about — that it is a war for freedom and democracy, a 
war against war, a war to prevent a few individuals 
from ever again plunging the world into war. Nor, 
though the day of our entry into the war was close at 
hand, had the idea that we might be forced to take part 
in the conflict so much as occurred to any of them. 

They were not stupid people; on the contrary, some 
of them possessed a homely and picturesque philos- 
ophy; but they were not informed, and the reason they 
were not informed has to do with one of the chief needs 
of our rural population — especially the rural population 
of the South. 

What they need is good newspapers. They need 
more world news and national news in place of county 
news and local briefs. In the whole South, moreover, 
there is need for general political news instead of biased 
news written always from inside the Democratic party, 
and sandwiched in between patent medicine advertise- 
ments. 



446 



CHAPTER XLI 
A MISSISSIPPI TOWN 

IT was dark when, after a journey of one hundred 
and twenty miles at the rate of twenty miles an 
hour, we reached Columbus, a city which was never 
intended to be a metropolis and which will never be one. 

Columbus is situated upon a bluff on the east bank of 
the Tombigbee River, to the west of which is a very fer- 
tile lowland region, filled with plantations, the owners 
of which, a century ago, founded the town in order that 
their families might have churches, schools, and the ad- 
vantages of social life. As the town grew, a curious but 
entirely natural community spirit developed; when a gas 
plant, water works, or hotel was needed, prosperous citi- 
zens got together and financed the enterprise, not so 
much for profit as for mutual comfort. 

In these ante bellum times the planters used to make 
annual journeys to Mobile and New Orleans, going by 
boat on the Tombigbee and taking their crops and their 
families with them. After selling their cotton and en- 
joying themselves in the city, they would load supplies 
for the ensuing year upon river boats and return to Co- 
lumbus, where the supplies were transferred to their 
vast attic storerooms. 

447 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Though their only water transportation was to the 
southward, they did not journey invariably in that direc- 
tion, but sometimes made excursions to such fashion- 
able watering places as the Virginia Springs, or Sara- 
toga, to which they drove in their own carriages. 

When, in the early days of railroad building, the Mo- 
bile & Ohio Railroad was being planned, the company 
proposed to include Columbus as one of its main-line 
points and asked for a right of way through the town 
and a cash bonus in consideration of the benefits Colum- 
bus would derive from railroad service. Both requests 
were refused. The railroad company then waived the 
bonus and attempted to obtain a right of way by pur- 
chase. But to no purpose. The citizens would not sell. 
They did not want a railroad. They were prosperous 
and healthy, and they contended that a railroad would 
bring poor people and disease among them, besides kill- 
ing farm animals and causing runaways. The com- 
pany was consequently forced to make a new survey, 
and when the line was built it passed at a distance of a 
dozen miles or more from the city. 

Gradually dawned the era of speed and impatience. 
People who had hitherto been satisfied to make long 
journeys in horse-drawn vehicles, and had refused the 
railroad a right of way, now began to complain of the 
twelve-mile drive to the nearest station, and to suggest 
that the company build a branch line into the town. 
But this time it was the railroad's turn to say no, and 
Columbus was informed that if it wished a branch 

448 



A MISSISSIPPI TOWN 

line it could go ahead and build it at its own expense. 
This was finally done at a cost of fifty thousand 
dollars. 

With the constructon of the branch line, carriages 
fell into disuse and dilapidation, and many an old 
barouche, landau, and brett passed into the hands of 
the negro hackmen who were former slaves of the old 
families. Among these ex-slaves the traditions of the 
first families of Columbus were upheld long after the 
war, and it thus happened that when, a few years since, 
a young New Yorker, arriving for a visit in the town, 
alighted from his train, he was greeted by an ancient 
negro who, indicating an equally ancient carriage, cried : 
"Hack, suh! Hack, suh! Ain't nevah been rid in by 
none but the Billupses." 

Not every young man from the North would have 
understood this reference, but by a coincidence it was at 
the residence of Mrs. Billups that this one had come 
to visit. 

Neither as to hack nor habitation were my companion 
and I so fortunate as the earlier visitor. Our convey- 
ance was a Ford, and the driver warned us, as we pro- 
gressed through shadowy tree-bordered streets, that the 
Gilmer Hotel was crowded with delegates who had come 
to attend the State convention of the Order of the East- 
ern Star. Nor was his warning without foundation. 
The wide old-fashioned lobby of the Gilmer was hung 
with the colors of the Order and packed with Ladies 
of the Eastern Star and their ecstatic families; we 

449 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

managed to make our way through the press only to be 
told by the single worn-out clerk on duty that not a room 
was to be had. 

Unlike the haughty clerk who had dismissed us from 
the Tutwiler Hotel in Birmingham, the clerk at the 
Gilmer was not without the quality of mercy. Over- 
worked though he was, he began at once to telephone 
about the town in an effort to secure us rooms. But if 
this led us to conclude that our problem was thereby in 
effect solved, we discovered, after listening to his brief 
telephonic conversatons wth a series of unseen ladies, 
that the conclusion was premature. Though there 
were vacant rooms in several private houses, strange 
stray males were not desired as lodgers. 

Concerned as we were over our plight, my companion 
and I could not help being aware that a young lady who 
had been standing at the desk when we came in, and 
had since remained there, was taking kindly interest in 
the situation. Nor, for the matter of that, could we 
help being aware, also, that she was very pretty in her 
soft black dress and corsage of narcissus. She did not 
speak to us ; indeed, she hardly honored us with a glance ; 
but, despite her sweet circumspection, we sensed in some 
subtle way that she was sorry for us, and were cheered 
thereby. 

After a time, when the clerk seemed to have reached 
the end of his resources, the young lady hesitantly ven- 
tured some suggestions as to other houses where rooms 
might possibly be had. These suggestions she ad- 

450 



A MISSISSIPPI TOWN 

dressed entirely to the clerk — who, upon receiving them, 
did more telephoning. 

"Have you tried Mrs. Eichelberger ?" the young lady 
asked him, after several more failures. 

He had not, but promptly did so. His conversation 
v^^ith Mrs. Eichelberger started promisingly, but pres- 
ently we heard him make the damning admission he had 
been compelled repeatedly to make before: 

"No, ma'am. It 's two men." 

Then, just as the last hope seemed to be fading, our 
angel of mercy spoke again. 

''Wait!" she put in impulsively. "Tell her — tell her 
I recommend them." 

Thus informed, Mrs. Eichelberger became compliant ; 
but when the details were arranged, and we turned to 
thank our benefactor, she had fled. 

Mrs. Eichelberger's house was but a few blocks dis- 
tant from the Gilmer. She installed us in two large, 
comfortable rooms, remarking, as we entered, that we 
had better hurry, as we were already late. 

"Late for what?" one of us asked. 

"Didn't you come for the senior dramatics?" 

"Senior dramatics where?" 

"At the I. I. and C." 

"What is the I. I. and C?" 

At this question a look of doubt, if not suspicion, 
crossed the lady's face. 

"Where are you-all from?" she demanded. 

The statement that we came from New York seemed 

451 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

to explain satisfactorily our ignorance of the I. I. and 
C. Evidently Mrs. Eichelberger expected little of New 
Yorkers. The I. I. and C, she explained, was the 
Mississippi Industrial Institute and College, formerly 
known as the Female College, a State institution for 
young women ; and the senior dramatics were even then 
in progress in the college chapel, just up the street. 

To the chapel, therefore, my companion and I re- 
paired as rapidly as might be, guided thither by frequent 
sounds of applause. 

From among the seniors standing guard in cap and 
gown at the chapel door, the quick artistic eye of my 
companion selected a brown-eyed auburn-haired young 
goddess as the one from whom tickets might most ap- 
propriately be bought. Nor did he display thrift in the 
transaction. Instead of buying modest quarter seats 
he magnificently purchased the fifty-cent kind. 

The dazzling ticket seller, transformed to usher, now 
led us into the crowded auditorium and down an aisle. 
A few rows from the stage she stopped, and, fastening a 
frigid gaze upon two hapless young women who were 
seated some distance in from the passageway, bade them 
emerge and yield their place to us. 

Of course we instantly protested, albeit in whispers, 
as the play was going on. But the beautiful Olympian 
lightly brushed aside our objectons. 

'They don't belong here," she declared loftily. 
'They 're freshmen — and they only bought quarter 
seats." 

452 



A MISSISSIPPI TOWN 

Then, as the guilty pair seemed to hesitate, she sum- 
moned them with a compeUing gesture and the com- 
mand: "Come out!" 

At this they arose meekly enough, whereupon we re- 
doubled our protests. But to no purpose. The Titian- 
tinted creature was relentless. Our pleas figured no 
more in her scheme of things than if they had been bab- 
blings in an unknown tongue. To add to our discomfit- 
ure, a large part of the audience seemed to have per- 
ceived the nature of our dilemma, and was giving us 
amused attention. 

It was a crisis ; and in a crisis — especially one in which 
a member of the so-called gentle sex is involved — I have 
learned to look to my companion. He understands 
women. He has often told me so. And now, by his 
action, he proved it. What he did was to turn and flee, 
and I fled with him; nor did we pause until we were 
safely hidden away in humble twenty-five cent seats at 
the rear of the chapel, in the shadow of the overhanging 
gallery. 

It is not my intention to write an extended criticism 
of the performance. For one thing, I witnessed only a 
fragment of it, and for another, though I once acted for 
a brief period as dramatic critic on a New York news- 
paper, I was advised by my managing editor to give up 
dramatic criticism, and I have followed his advice. 

The scene evidently represented a room, its walls 
made of red screens behind which rose the lofty pipes of 
the chapel organ. On a pedestal at one side stood a bust 

453 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

of the Venus de Milo, while on the other hung an en- 
graving of a famiHar picture which I beUeve is called 
"The Fates," and which has the appearance of having 
been painted by some-one-or-other like Leighton or 
Bouguereau or Harold Bell Wright. 

After we had given some attention to the play my 
companion remarked that, from the dialect, he judged 
it to be "Uncle Tom's Cabin." I had been told, how- 
ever, that for certain reasons "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is 
never played in the South; I therefore asked the young 
man in front of me what play it was. He replied that 
it was Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson's 
comedy, "The Man From Home," and as he made the 
statement openly, I feel that I am violating no confidence 
in repeating what he said — especially since his declara- 
tion was supported by the program which he showed me. 

He was a pleasant young man. Perceiving that I 
was a stranger, he volunteered the additional informa- 
tion that the masculine roles, as well as the feminine 
ones, were being played by girls ; and I trust that I will 
not seem to be boasting of perspicacity when I declare 
that there had already entered my mind a suspicion that 
such was indeed the case. 

Behold them ! Gaze upon the character called Daniel 
Voorhees Pike! See what long strides he takes, and 
with what pretty tiny feet ! Observe the manliness with 
which he thrusts his pink little hands deep in the pockets 
of his — or somebody's — pantaloons! 

Look at the Grand Duke Vasill of Russia, his sweet 

454 



A MISSISSIPPI TOWN 

oval face and rosy mouth partly obscured by mustache 
and goatee of a most strange wooliness. 

Observe the ineradicable daintiness of the Honorable 
Almeric St. Aubyn, but more particularly attend to that 
villain of helpless loveliness, the Earl of Hawcastle. 
The frightful life which, it is indicated, the Earl has led, 
leaves no tell-tale marks upon his blooming countenance. 
His only facial disfigurement consists in a mustache 
which, by reason of its grand-ducal lanateness, seems 
to hint at a mysterious relationship between the British 
and Russian noblemen. 

Take note, moreover, of the outlines of the players. 
If ever earl was belted it was this one. If ever duke 
in evening dress revealed delectable convexities of fig- 
ure, it was this duke. If ever worthy male from In- 
diana spoke in a soprano voice and was lithe, alluring, 
and recurvous, she was Daniel Voorhees Pike. 

A young woman seated near us described to her es- 
cort the personal characteristics of the various young 
ladies on the stage, and when we heard her call one girl 
who played in a betrousered part, "a perfect darling," 
we echoed inwardly the sentiment. All were darlings. 
And this especial "perfect darling" appeared as well to 
be a "perfect thirty-six." 

The Earl was my undoing. At a critical point in 
the unfolding of the plot there was talk of his having 
been connected with a scandal in St. Petersburg. 
This he attempted to deny, and though T am unable 
to quote the exact words of his denial, the sound of it 

455 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

lingers sweetly in my memory. Nor would the exact 
words, could I give them, convey, in print, the quality 
of what was said, for the Earl, and all the rest, spoke in 
the soft, melodious tones of Mississippi. 

''What you-all fussin' raound heah for, this mown- 
in'?" That, perhaps, conveys some sense of a line he 
spoke on entering. 

And when, in reply, one of the others mentioned 
the scandal at St. Petersburg, the flavor of the Earl's 
retort, as its cooing tones remain with me, was 
this: 

''Wha', honey! What you-all mean hintin' raound 
'baout St. Petuhsbuhg? I reckon you don' know what 
you talkin' 'baout ! Ah nevuh was in that taown in all 
ma bo'n days!" 

What followed I am unable to relate, for the Earl's 
speech caused me to become emotional, and my com- 
panion, after informing me severely that I was making 
myself conspicuous, removed me from the chapel. 

The auburn goddess was still on duty at the door as 
we went out. Advancing, she placed in each of our 
hands a quarter. I regret to say that, in my shaken 
state, I misinterpreted this action. 

"Oh, no! Pleased I protested, fearing that she 
thought we had not enjoyed the performance, and was 
therefore returning our m.oney. *Tt really was n't bad 
at all. We 're only going because we have an engage- 
ment." 

456 



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o n> 

O t/5 

o " 
en ?r 

£0 









3 ^ 







A MISSISSIPPI TOWN 

*'Be quiet!" interrupted my companion in a savage 
undertone, jerking me along by the arm. "It 's only a 
rebate on the seats!" And without allowing me a 
chance to set myself right he dragged me out. 



457 



M 



CHAPTER XLII 

OLD TALES AND A NEW GAME 

RS. EICHELBERGER supplied us merely 
with a place to sleep. For meals she referred 
us to a lady who lived a few doors up the street. 
But when in the morning we went, full of hunger and of 
hope, to the house of this lady, we were coldly informed 
that breakfast was over, and were recommended to the 
Bell Cafe, downtown. 

My companion and I are not of that robust breed 
which enjoys a bracing walk before its morning coffee, 
and the fact that the streets of Columbus charmed us, 
as we now saw them for the first time by daylight, is 
proof enough of their quality. There is but little appe- 
tite for beauty in an empty stomach. 

The streets were splendidly wide, and bordered with 
fine old trees, and the houses, each in its own lawn, each 
with its vines and shrubs, were full of the suggestion of 
an easy-going home life and an informal hospitality. 
Most of them were of frame and in their architecture 
illustrated the decadence of the eighties and nineties, 
but here or there was a fine old brick homestead with 
a noble columned portico, or a formal Georgian house, 
disposed among beautiful trees and gardens and shel- 

458 



OLD TALES AND A NEW GAME 

tered from the street by an ancient hedge of box. So, 
though Columbus is, as I have indicated, not too easily 
reached by rail, and though, as I have further indicated, 
walks before breakfast are not to my taste, I am com- 
pelled to say that for both the journey and the walk I 
felt repaid by the sight of some of the old houses — the 
Baldwin house, the W. D. Humphries house, the J. O. 
Banks house, the old McLaren house, the Kinnebrew 
house, the Thomas Hardy house, the J. M. Morgan 
house, with its garden of lilies and roses, its giant mag- 
nolia trees and its huge camellia bushes; and most of all, 
perhaps, for its Georgian beauty, the mellow tone of its 
old brick, its rich tangle of southern growths, and its 
associations, the venerable mansion of the late General 
Stephen D. Lee, C. S. A. — now the property of the lat- 
ter's only son, Mr. Blewett Lee, general counsel of the 
Illinois Central Railroad, and a resident of Chicago. 

It was apropos of our visit to the Lee house that I was 
told of a dramatic and touching example of the rebirth 
of amity between North and South. 

Stephen D. Lee it was who, as a young artillery of- 
ficer attached to the stafif of General Beauregard, trans- 
mitted the actual order to fire on Fort Sumter, the shot 
which began the war. Two years later, having been 
promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general, the same 
Stephen D. Lee participated in the defense of Vicks- 
burg against the assaults of Porter's gunboats from the 
river and of Grant's armies, which hemmed in the hilled 
city on landward side, until at last, on the 4th of July, 

459 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

1863, the place was surrendered, making Grant's fame 
secure. 

Years after, when the Government of the United 
States accepted a statue of General Stephen D. Lee, to 
be placed upon the battle ground of Vicksburg — now a 
national park — it was the late General Frederick Dent 
Grant, son of the capturer of the city, who journeyed 
thither to unveil the memorial to his father's former 
foe. And by a peculiarly gracious and fitting set of cir- 
cumstances it came about that when, in April last, the 
ninety-fifth anniversary of the birth of U. S. Grant 
was celebrated in his native city. Galena, Illinois, it w^as 
Blewett Lee, only son of the general taken by Grant at 
Vicksburg, who journeyed to Galena and there in a 
memorial address, returned the earlier compliment paid 
to the memory of his own father by Grant's son. 

Columbus may perhaps appreciate the charm of its 
old homes, but there is evidence to show that it did not 
appreciate certain other weatherworn structures of 
great beauty. I have seen photographs of an old Bap- 
tist Church with a fine (and not at all Baptist-looking) 
portico and fluted columns, which was torn down to 
make room for the present stupidly commonplace Bap- 
tist church ; and I have seen pictures of the beautiful old 
town hall which was recently supplanted by an igno- 
rantly ordinary town building of yellow pressed brick. 
The destruction of these two early buildings represents 
an irreparable loss to Columbus, and it is to be hoped 

460 



OLD TALES AND A NEW GAME 

that the town will some day be sufficiently enlightened 
to know that this is true and to regret that it did 
not restore and enlarge them instead of tearing them 
down. 

Until a decade or two ago Columbus had, so far as I 
can learn, but four streets possessing names: Main 
Street, Market Street, College Street, and Catfish Alley, 
all other streets being known as ''the street that Mrs. 
Billups, or Mrs. Sykes, or Mrs. Humphries, or Mrs. 
Some-one-else lives on." 

Market and Main are business streets — at least they 
are so where they cross — and, like the other streets, are 
wide. They are lined with brick buildings few if any of 
them more than three stories in height, and it was in 
one of these buildings, on Main Street, that we found the 
Bell Cafe — advertised as ''the most exclusive cafe in 
the State." 

Being in search of breakfast rather than exclusive- 
ness, we did not sit at one of the tables, but at the long 
lunch counter, where we were quickly served. 

After breakfast we felt strong enough to look at pic- 
ture post cards, and to that end visited first "Cheap 
Joe's" and then the shop of Mr. Divilbis, where news- 
papers, magazines, sporting goods, cameras, and all 
such things, are sold. Having viewed post cards pic- 
turing such scenes as "Main Street looking north," 
"The 1st Baptist Church," and "Steamer America, 
Tomblgbee River," we were about to depart, when our 
attention was drawn to a telephonic conversation which 

461 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

had started between Mr. Divilbis's clerk and a customer 
who was thinking of going in for the game of lawn 
tennis. The half of the conversation which was audible 
to us proved entertaining, and we dallied, eavesdrop- 
ping. 

The clerk began by recommending tennis. '*Yes," he 
said, "that would be very nice. Everybody is playing 
tennis now." 

But that got him into trouble, for after a pause he 
said : "I 'm sorry I can't tell you everything about it. 
I don't play tennis myself. Al could tell you, though. 
He plays." 

Then, after a much longer pause: ''Well, ma'am, 
you see, in a game of lawn tennis everybody owns their 
own racquet." 

At this juncture a tall, thin man in what is known 
(excepting at Palm Beach) as a "Palm Beach suit," 
entered the shop and the clerk asked his inquisitor to 
hold the wire while he made some inquiries. After a 
lonof conversation with the new arrival he returned to 
the telephone and resumed his explanation. 

"Well, you see, they have a net, and one stands on one 
side and one on the other — yes, ma'am, there can be two 
on each side — and one serves. What? Yes, he hits 
the ball over the net, and it has to go in the opposite 
court on the other side, and then if that one does n't 
send it back — Yes, the court is marked with lines — 
why, that counts fifteen. The next count is thirty. 
What? No, ma'am, I don't know why they count that 

462 



OLD TALES AND A NEW GAME 

way. No, it 's just the way they do in lawn tennis. If 
your opponent has nothing, why, they call that 'love.' 
Yes, that 's it — 1-o-v-e — just the same as when any- 
body 's in love. No, ma'am, I don't know why. . . . 
So that 's the way they count. 

"No, ma'am, the lines are boundaries. You have to 
stand in a certain place and hit the ball in a certain 
place. . . . No, I don't mean that way. You 've got to 
hit it so it lands in a certain place ; and the one that 's 
playing against you has to hit it back in a certain place, 
and if it goes in some other place, then you can't play it 
any more. Oh, no! Not all day. I mean that ends 
that part, and you start over. You just keep on doing 
like that." 

But though it was apparent that he considered his 
explanation complete, the lady at the other end of the 
wire was evidently not yet satisfied, and as he began to 
struggle with more questions we left the shop and went 
to the Gilmer Hotel to see if anv mail had come for us. 

The Gilmer was built by slave labor some years be- 
fore the war, and was in its day considered a very 
handsome edifice. Nor is it to-day an unsatisfactory 
hotel for a town of the size of Columbus. Its old brick 
walls are sturdy, and its rooms are of a fine spacious- 
ness. Downstairs it has been somewhat remodeled, 
but the large parlor on the second floor is much as it was 
in the beginning, even to the great mirrors and the 
carved furniture Imported more than sixty years ago 
from France. Most of the doors still have the old locks, 

463 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

and the window cords originally installed were of such 
a quality that they have not had to be renewed. 

The Gilmer was still new when the Battle of Shiloh 
was fought, and several thousand of the wounded were 
brought to Columbus. The hotel and various other 
buildings, including that of the former Female Insti- 
tute, were converted into hospitals, as were also many 
private houses in the town. 

Though there was never fighting at Columbus, the 
end of the war found some fifteen hundred soldiers' 
graves in Friendship Cemetery, perhaps twoscore of the 
number being those of Federals. The citizens were, at 
this time, too poor and too broken in spirit to erect 
memorials, but several ladies of Columbus made it their 
custom to visit the cemetery and care for the graves of 
the Confederate dead. This movement, started by indi- 
viduals — Miss Matt Moreton, Mrs. J. T. Fontaine, and 
Mrs. Green T. Hill — was soon taken up by other ladies 
of the place and resulted in a determination to make the 
decoration of soldiers' graves an annual occurrence. 

In an old copy of the "Mississippi Index," published 
at the time, may be found an account of the solemn march 
of the women, young and old, to the cemetery, on April 
25, 1866 — one year after Robert E. Lee's surrender — 
and of the decoration of the graves not only of Con- 
federate but of Federal soldiers. It is the proud boast 
of Columbus that this occasion constituted the first cele- 
bration of the now national Decoration Day — or, as it is 
more properly called, Memorial Day. 

464 




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■^ o 

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O S 

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OLD TALES AND A NEW GAME 

It should perhaps be said here that Cokimbus, Geor- 
gia, disputes the claim of Columbus, Mississippi, as to 
Memorial Day. in the Georgia city it is contended that 
the idea of decorating soldiers' graves originated with 
Miss Lizzie Rutherford, later Mrs. Roswell Ellis, of 
that place. The inscription of Mrs. Ellis' monument in 
Linwood Cemetery, Columbus, Georgia, states that the 
idea of Memorial Day originated with her. 

It seems clear, however, that the same idea occurred 
to women in both cities simultaneously, and that, while 
the actual celebration of the day occurred in Columbus, 
Mississippi, one day earlier than in Columbus, Georgia, 
the ladies of the latter city may have been first in sug- 
gesting that Memorial Day be not a local celebration, 
but one in which the whole South should take part. 

The incident of the first decoration of the graves of 
Union as well as Confederate soldiers appears, however, 
to belong entirely to Columbus, Mississippi, and it is cer- 
tain that this exhibition of magnanimity inspired F. W. 
Finch to write the famous poem, "The Blue and the 
Gray," for when that poem was first published in the 
''Atlantic Monthly" for September, 1867, it carried the 
following headnote : 

The women of Columbus, Miss., animated by noble sentiments, 
have shown themselves impartial in their offerings to the mem- 
ory of the dead. They strewed flowers on the graves of the 
Confederate and of the National soldiers. 

This episode becomes the more touching by reason 
of the fact that the Columbus lady who initiated the 

465 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

movement to place flowers on the Union graves, at a 
time when such action was sure to provoke much criti- 
cism in the South, was Mrs. Augusta Murdock Sykes, 
herself the widow of a Confederate soldier. 

So with an equal splendor 

The morning sun rays fall, 
With a touch impartially tender 

On the blossoms blooming for all; 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the Judgment Day; 
Broidered with gold the Blue; 
Mellowed with gold the Gray. 



466 



CHAPTER XLIII 
OUT OF THE LONG AGO 

WHILE local historians attempt to tangle up 
the exploration of De Soto with the early 
history of this region, saying that De Soto 
"entered the State of Mississippi near the site of Colum- 
bus," and that "he probably crossed the Tombigbee 
River at this point," their conclusions are largely the 
result of guesswork. But it is not guesswork to say that 
when the Kentucky and Tennessee volunteers, going to 
the aid of Andrew Jackson, at New Orleans, in 1814, cut 
a military road from Tuscumbia, Alabama, to the Gulf, 
they passed over the site of Columbus, for the road they 
cut remains to-day one of the principal highways of the 
district as well as one of the chief streets of the town. 
More clearly defined, of course, are memories of the 
Civil War and of Reconstruction, for there are many 
present-day residents of Columbus who remember both. 
Among these is one of those wonderful, sweet, high- 
spirited, and altogether fascinating ladies whom we 
call old only because their hair is white and because a 
number of years have passed over their heads — one of 
those glorious young old ladies in which the South is, I 

467 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

think, richer than any other single section of the world. 

It was our good fortune to meet Mrs. John Billups, 
and to see some of her treasured relics — among them the 
flag carried through the battles of Monterey and Buena 
Vista by the First Mississippi Regiment, of which Jef- 
ferson Davis was colonel, and in which her husband was 
a lieutenant; and a crutch used by General Nathan Bed- 
ford Forrest when he was housed at the Billups resi- 
dence in Columbus, recovering from a wound. But bet- 
ter yet it was to hear Mrs. Billups herself tell of the 
times when the house in which she lived as a young 
woman, at Holly Springs, Mississippi, was used as 
headquarters by General Grant. 

Mrs. Billups, who was a Miss Govan, was educated in 
Philadelphia and Wilmington, and had many friends 
and relatives in the North. Her mother was Mrs. 
Mary Govan of Holly Springs, and her brother's wife, 
who resided with the Govans during the war, was a Miss 
Hawkes, a daughter of the Rev. Francis L. Hawkes, 
then rector of St. Thomas's Church in New York. All 
were, however, good Confederates. 

Mrs. Govan's house at Holly Springs was being used 
as a hospital when Grant and his army marched, unre- 
sisted, into the town, and Mrs. Govan, with her daugh- 
ters and daughter-in-law, had already moved to the resi- 
dence of Colonel Harvey Walter, which is to this day 
a show place, and is now the residence of Mr. and Mrs. 
Oscar Johnson of St. Louis — Mrs. Johnson being Col- 



onel Walter's daughter. 



468 



OUT OF THE LONG AGO 

This house was selected by Grant as his headquarters, 
and he resided there for a considerable period. ("It 
seemed a mighty long time," says Mrs. Billups.) With 
the general was Mrs. Grant and their son Jesse, as 
well as Mrs. Grant's negro maid, Julia, who, Mrs. 
Grant told Mrs. Billups, had been given to her, as a 
slave, by her father. Colonel Dent. Mrs. Billups was 
under the impression that Julia was, at that time, still a 
slave. At all events, she was treated as a slave. 

"We all liked the Grants," Mrs. Billups said. "He 
had very little to say, but she was very sociable and used 
to come in and sit with us a great deal. 

"One day the general took his family and part of his 
army and went to Oxford, Mississippi, leaving Colonel 
Murphy in command at Holly Springs. While Grant 
was away our Confederate General Van Dorn made a 
raid on Holly Springs, capturing the town, tearing up 
the railroad, and destroying the supplies of the North- 
ern army. He just dashed In, did his work, and dashed 
out again. 

"Some of his men came to the house and, knowing that 
it was Grant's headquarters, wished to make a search. 
My mother was entirely willing they should do so, but 
she knew that there were no papers in the house, and 
assured the soldiers that if they did search they would 
find nothing but Mrs. Grant's personal apparel — which 
she was sure they would not wish to disturb. 

"That satisfied them and they went away. 

"Next morning back came Grant with his army. He 

469 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

rode up on horseback, preceded by his bodyguard, and I 
remember that he looked worn and worried. 

"As he dismounted he saw my sister-in-law, Mrs. 
Eaton Pugh Govan — the one who was Miss Hawkes — 
standing on the gallery above. 

"He called up to her and said: 'Mrs. Govan, I sup- 
pose my sword is gone ?' 

"'What sword, General?' she asked him. 

" 'The sword that was presented to me by the army. 
I left it in my wife's closet.' 

"Mrs. Govan was thunderstruck. 

" T did n't know it was there,' she said. 'Oh ! I should 
have been tempted to send it to General Van Dorn if I 
had known that it was there !' 

"The next morning, as a reward to us for not having 
known that his sword was there, the general gave us a 
protection paper explicitly forbidding soldiers to enter 
the house." 

Of course the Govans, like all other citizens of in- 
vaded districts in the South, buried their family plate be- 
fore the "Yankees" came. 

Shortly after this had been accomplished — as they 
thought, secretly — the Govans were preparing to enter- 
tain friends at dinner when a negro boy who helped 
about the dining-room remarked innocently, in the pres- 
ence of Mrs. Govan and several of her servants : 

"Missus ain't gwine to have no fine table to-night, 
caze all de silvuh 's done buried in de strawbe'y patch." 

He had seen the old gardener "planting" the plate. 

470 



OUT OF THE LONG AGO 

Thereafter it was quietly decided in the family that 
the negroes had better know nothing about the location 
of buried treasure. That night, therefore, some gentle- 
men went out to the strawberry patch, disinterred the 
silver, carried it to Colonel Walter's place, and there 
buried it under the front walk. 

''And after Grant came," said Mrs. Billups, "we used 
to laugh as we watched the Union sentries marching up 
and down that walk, right over our plate." 

Among the items not already mentioned, of which 
Columbus is proud, are the facts that she has supplied 
two cabinet members within the past decade — J. M. 
Dickinson, Taft's Secretary of War, and T. W. Gregory, 
Wilson's Attorney General — and that J. Gano Johnson, 
breeder of famous American saddle horses, has recently 
come from Kentucky and established his Emerald Chief 
Stock Farm in Lowndes County, a short distance from 
the town. 

But items like these, let me be frank to say, do not 
appeal to me as do the picturesque old stories which 
cling about such a town. 

There is, for instance, the story of Alexander Keith 
McClung, famous about the middle of the last century as 
a duellist and dandy. McClung was a Virginian by 
birth, but while still a young man took up his residence 
in Columbus. His father studied law under Thomas 
Jefferson and was later conspicuous in Kentucky politics, 
and his mother was a sister of Chief Justice John Mar- 

471 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

shall. In 1828, at the age of seventeen, McCking be- 
came a midshipman in the navy, and though he remained 
in the service but a year, he managed during that time 
to fight a duel with another midshipman, who wounded 
him in the arm. At eighteen he fought a duel near 
Frankfort, Kentucky, with his cousin James W. Mar- 
shall. His third duel was with a lawyer named Allen, 
who resided in Jackson, Mississippi. Allen was the 
challenger — as it is said McClung took pains to see that 
his adversaries usually were, so that he might have the 
choice of weapons, for he was very skillful with the pis- 
tol. In his duel with Allen he specified that each was 
to be armed with four pistols and a bowie knife, that 
they were to start eighty paces apart, and upon signal 
were to advance, firing at will. At about thirty paces 
he shot Allen through the brain. His fourth duel was 
with John Menifee, of Vicksburg, and was fought in 
1839, on the river bank, near that city, with rifles at 
thirty yards. Some idea of the spirit in which duel- 
ling was taken in those days may be gathered from 
the fact that the Vicksburg Rifles, of which Menifee was 
an officer, turned out in full uniform to see the fight. 
However they were doubly disappointed, for it was Men- 
ifee and not McClung who died. It is said that a short 
time after this, one of Menifee's brothers challenged Mc- 
Clung, who killed this brother, and so on until he had 
killed all seven male members of the Menifee family. 

McClung fought gallantly in the Mexican War, as 
lieutenant-colonel of the First Mississippi Regiment, 

472 



OUT OF THE LONG AGO 

of which Jefferson Davis was colonel. Though he re- 
mained always a bachelor it is said that he had many 
love affairs. He was a hard drinker, a flowery speaker, 
and a writer of sentimental verse. It is said that in his 
later life he was exceedingly unhappy, brooding over the 
lives he had taken in duels — fourteen in all. His last 
poem was an "Invocation to Death," ending with the 

line: 

"Oh, Death, come soon ! Come soon !" 

Shortly after writing it he shaved, dressed himself 
with the most scrupulous care, and shot himself. This 
occurred March 23, 1855, in the Eagle Hotel, North Cap- 
itol Street, Jackson, Mississippi. 

"To preserve the neatness and cleanliness of his attire 
after death should have ensued," says Colonel R. W. 
Banks, "it is said he poured a little water upon the floor 
to ascertain the direction the blood would take when it 
flowed from the wound. Then, placing himself in 
proper position, so that the gore would run from and not 
toward his body, he placed the pistol to the right temple, 
pulled the trigger and death quickly followed." 



473 



CHAPTER XLIV 
THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM 

ON our second evening in Columbus my com- 
panion and I returned to the house, near our 
domicile, to which we had been sent by Mrs. 
Eichelberger for our meals; but owing to a mis- 
understanding as to the dinner hour we found our- 
selves again too late. The family, and the teachers 
from the I. I. and C. who took meals there, were already 
coming out from dinner to sit and chat on the steps in 
the twilight. 

We were disappointed, for we were tired of restau- 
rants, and had counted on a home meal that night ; nor 
was our disappointment softened by the fact that the 
lady whom we interviewed seemed to have no pity for us, 
but dismissed us in a chilling manner, which hinted that, 
even had we been in time for dinner, we should have 
been none too welcome at her exclusive board. 

Crestfallen, we turned away and started once more 
in the direction of the Belle Cafe. In the half light the 
street held for us a melancholy loveliness. Above, the 
great trees made a dark, soft canopy ; the air was balmy 
and sweet with the scent of lilacs and roses ; lights were 
beginning to appear in windows along the way. Yet 

474 



THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM 

none of it was for us. We were wanderers, condemned 
forever to walk through strange streets whose homes 
we might not enter, and whose inhabitants we might not 
know. 

When we had proceeded in silence for a block or two, 
we perceived a woman strolling toward us on the walk 
ahead. Nor was it yet so dark that we could fail to 
notice, as we neared her, that she was very pretty in her 
soft black dress and her corsage of narcissus — that, in 
short, she was the young lady whom, though we were in- 
debted to her for our rooms at Mrs. Eichelberger's, we 
had not been able to thank. 

Now, of course, we stopped and told her of our grati- 
tude. First my companion told her of his. Then I told 
her of mine. Then we both told her of our combined 
gratitude. And after each telling she assured us sweetly 
that it was nothing — nothing at all. 

All this made quite a little conversation. She hoped 
that we were comfortable. We assured her that we 
were. Then, because it seemed so pleasant to be talk- 
ing, on a balmy, flower-scented evening, with a pretty 
girl wearing a soft black dress and a corsage of nar- 
cissus, we branched out, telling her of our successive 
disappointments as to meals in the house up the street. 

''Which house?" she asked. 

We described it. 

'That 's where I live," said she. 

And to think we had twice been late! 

"You live there?" 

475 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

''Yes. It was my elder sister whom you saw." Then 
we all smiled, for we had spoken of the chill which had 
accompanied the rebuff. 

"Do you think your sister will let us come to-morrow 
for breakfast?" ventured my companion. 

"If you 're there by eight." 

"Because," he added, "breakfast is our last meal 
here." 

"You 're going away?" 

"Yes. About noon." 

"Oh," she said. And we hoped the way she said it 
meant that she was just the least bit sorry we were 
going. 

With that she started to move on again. 

"We '11 see you at breakfast, then?" 

"Perhaps," she said in a casual tone, continuing on her 
way. 

"Not surely?" 

"Why not come and see?" The words were wafted 
back to us provocatively upon the evening air. 

"W^ewill! Goodnight." 

"Good night." 

We walked some little way in silence. 

"Eight o'clock!" murmured my companion presently 
in a reflective, rueful tone. "We must turn in early." 

We did turn in early, and we should have been asleep 
early was it not for the fact that among the chief won- 
ders of Columbus must be ranked its roosters — birds of 
a ghastly habit of nocturnal vocalism. 

4/6 



THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM 

But though these creatures interfered somewhat with 
our skunbers, and though eight is an early hour for us, 
we reached the neighboring house next morning five 
minutes ahead of time. And though the manner of the 
elder sister was, as before, austere, that made no differ- 
ence, for the younger sister was there. 

After breakfast we dallied, chatting with her for a 
time; then a bell began to toll, and my companion re- 
minded me that I had an engagement to visit the In- 
dustrial Institute and College before leaving. 

It w^as quite true. I had made the engagement the 
day before, but it had been my distinct understanding 
that he was to accompany me; for if anything discon- 
certs me it is to go alone to such a place. However 
sweet girls may be as individuals, or in small groups, 
they are in the mass diabolically cruel, and their cruelty 
is directed especially against men. I know. I have 
walked up to a college building to pay a call, while thirty 
girls, seated on the steps, played, sang, and whistled an 
inane marching tune, with the rhythm of which my steps 
could not but keep time. I have been the only man in a 
dining-room full of college girls. A hundred of them 
put down their knives and forks with a clatter as I en- 
tered, and a hundred pairs of mischievously solemn eyes 
followed my every movement. Voluntarily to go 
through such experiences alone a man must be in love. 
And certainly I was not in love with any girl at the In- 
dustrial Institute. 

"We both have an engagement," I said. 

477 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

"1 can't go," he returned. 

"Why not?" 

"I have two sketches to make before train time." 

"You 're going to make me go over there alone f" 

"I don't care whether you go or not," he rephed merci- 
lessly. "You made the engagement. I had nothing to 
do with it. But I am responsible for the pictures." 

Perceiving that it was useless to argue with him, I re- 
luctantly departed and, not without misgivings, made my 
way to the Industrial Institute. 

I am thankful to say that there matters did not turn 
out so badly for me as I had anticipated. I refused to 
visit classrooms, and contented myself with gathering 
information. And since the going to gather this in- 
formation cost me such uneasiness, I do not propose to 
waste entirely the fruits of my effort, but shall here 
record some of the facts that I collected. 

The Industrial Institute and College is for girls of six- 
teen years or over who are graduates of high schools. 
There are about 800 students taking either the col- 
legiate, normal, industrial, or musical courses, or com- 
bination courses. This college, I was informed, was the 
first in the country to offer industrial education to 
women. 

Most of the students come from families in modest 
circumstances, and attend the college with the definite 
purpose of fitting themselves to become self-supporting. 
The cost Is very slight, the only regular charge, aside 
from board and general living expenses, being a nominal 

478 



THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM 

matriculation fee of $5. There is no charge for rooms 
in the large dormitories connected with the college. 
Board, light, fuel, and laundry are paid for co- 
operatively, the average cost per student, for all these, 
being about ten dollars a month — which sum also in- 
cludes payment for a lyceum ticket and for two hats per 
annum. Uniforms are worn by all, these being very 
simple navy-blue suits with sailor hats. Seniors and 
juniors wear cap and gown. All uniform requirements 
may be covered at a cost of twenty dollars a year, and 
a girl who practices economy may get through her col- 
lege year at a total cost of about $125, though of course 
some spend considerably more. 

Many students work their way, either wholly or in 
part. Thirty or forty of them serve in the dining room, 
for which work they are allowed sixty-five dollars a 
year. Others, who clean classrooms are allowed fifty 
dollars a year, and still others earn various sums by 
assisting in the library or reading room or by doing sec- 
retarial work. 

Unlike the other departments of the college, the 
musical department is not a tax upon the State, but is 
entirely self-sustaining, each girl paying for her own 
lessons. This department is under the direction of Miss 
Weenonah Poindexter, to whose enthusiasm much if not 
all of its success is due. Miss Poindexter began her 
work in 1894, as the college's only piano teacher, giving 
lessons in the dormitories. Now she not only has a 
splendid music hall and a number of assistants, but has 

479 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

succeeded in making Columbus one of the recognized 
musical centers of the South, by bringing there a series 
of the most distinguished artists: Paderewski, Nor- 
dica, Schumann-Heinck, Gadski, Sembrich, Bispham, 
Albert Spaulding, Maud Powell, Damrosch's Orchestra, 
and Sousa's Band. 

So much I had learned of the I. I. and C. when it came 
time for me to flee to the train. My companion and I 
had already packed our suitcases, and it had been ar- 
ranged between us that, instead of consuming time by 
trying to meet and drive together to the station, we 
should work independently, joining each other at the 
train. 

I left the college in an automobile, stopping at Mrs. 
Eichelberger's only long enough to get my suitcase. As 
I drove on past the next corner I chanced to look up the 
intersecting street. There, by a lilac bush, stood my 
companion. He was not alone. With him was a very 
pretty girl wearing a soft black dress and a corsage of 
narcissus. But the corsage was now smaller, by one 
flower, than it had been before, for, as I sighted them, 
she was in the act of placing one of the blooms from her 
bouquet in my companion's buttonhole. Her hands 
looked very white and small against his dark coat, and 
I recall that he was gazing down at them, and that his 
features were distorted by a sentimental smile. 

''Come on !" I called to him. 

He looked up. His expression was vague. 

"Go along," he returned. 

480 










V,i.*^v- 



Her hands looked very white and -small against his dark coat. He was gazing 
down at them, his features distorted by a shockingly sentimental smile 



THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM 

"Why don't you come with me now ?" 

'T '11 be there," he replied. "You buy the tickets and 
check the baggage." And with that he turned his back. 

"Good-by," I called to the young lady. But she was 
looking up at him and did n't seem to hear me. 

My companion arrived at the station in an old hack, 
with horses at the gallop. He was barely in time. 

When we were settled in the car, bowling along over 
the prairies toward the little junction town of Artesia, 
I turned to him and inquired how his work had gone that 
morning. But at that moment he caught sight, through 
the car window, of some negroes sitting at a cabin door, 
and exclaimed over their picturesqueness. 

I agreed. Then, as the train left them behind, I re- 
peated my question: "How did your work go?" 

"This is very fertile-looking country," said he. 

This time I did not reply, but asked : 

"Did you finish both sketches?" 

"No," he answered. "Not both. There was n't time." 

"Let 's see the one you did." 

"As a matter of fact," he returned, "I did n't do any. 
You know how it is. Sometimes a fellow feels like 
drawing — sometimes he does n't. Somehow I did n't 
feel like it this morning." 

With that he lifted the lapel of his coat and, bending 
his head downward, sniffed in a romantic manner at the 
sickeningly sweet flower in his buttonhole. 



481 



CHAPTER XLV 
VICKSBURG OLD AND NEW 

I SHOULD advise the traveler who is interested in 
cities not to enter Vicksburg by the Alabama & 
Vicksburg- Railroad, which has a dingy little sta- 
tion in a sort of gulch, but by the Yazoo & Mississippi 
Valley Railroad — a branch of the Illinois Central — 
which skirts the river bank and flashes a large first im- 
pression of the city before the eyes of alighting pas- 
sengers. 

The station itself is a pretty brick colonial building, 
backed by a neat if tiny park maintained by the rail- 
road company, and facing the levee (pronounce "lev- 
vy"), along which the tracks are laid. Beyond the 
tracks untidy landing places are scattered along the 
water front, with here and there a tall, awkward, stern- 
wheel river steamer tied up, looking rather like an old- 
fashioned New Jersey seacoast hotel, covered with 
porches and jimcrack carving, painted white, embel- 
lished with a cupola and a pair of tall, thin smokestacks, 
and set adrift in its old age to masquerade in maritime 
burlesque. 

At other points along the bank are moored a heter- 
ogeneous assortment of shanty boats of an incredible 
and comic slouchiness. Some are nothing but rafts 

482 



VICKSBURG OLD AND NEW 

made of water-soaked logs, bearing tiny shacks knocked 
together out of driftwood and old patches of tin and 
canvas, but the larger ones have barges, or the hulks 
of old launches, as their foundation. These curious 
craft are moored in long lines to the half-submerged 
willow and cottonwood trees along the bank, or to stakes 
driven into the levee, or to the railroad ties, or to what- 
ever objects, ashore, may be made fast an old frayed 
rope or a piece of telephone wire. Long, narrow planks, 
precariously propped, connect them with the river bank, 
so that the men, women, children, dogs, and barnyard 
creatures who inhabit them may pass to and fro. Some 
of the boats are the homes of negro families, some of 
whites. On some, negro fish markets are conducted, ad- 
vertised by large catfish dangling from their posts and 
railings. 

Whether fishing for market, for personal use, or 
merely for the sake of having an occupation involving 
a minimum of effort, the residents of shanty boats — 
particularly the negroes — seem to spend most of their 
days seated in drowsy attitudes, with fish poles in their 
hands. Their eyes fall shut, their heads nod in the sun, 
their lines lag in the muddy water; life is uneventful, 
pleasant, and warm. 

When Porter's mortar fleet lay in the river, off Vicks- 
burg, bombarding the town, that river was the Missis- 
sippi, but though it looks the same to-day as it did then, 
it is not the Mississippi now, but the Yazoo River. 
This comes about through one of those freakish changes 

4cS3 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

of course for which the great stream has always been 
famous. 

In the old days Vicksburg was situated upon one of 
the loops of a large letter "S" formed by the Mississippi, 
but in 1876 the river cut through a section of land and 
eliminated the loop upon which the town stood. Fortu- 
nately, however, the Yazoo emptied into the Mississippi 
above Vicksburg, and it was found possible, by digging 
a canal, to divert the latter river from its course and 
lead its waters into the loop left dry by the whim of 
the greater stream. Thus the river life, out of which 
Vicksburg was born, and without which the place would 
lose its character, was retained, and the wicked old Mis- 
sissippi, which has played rough pranks on men and 
cities since men and cities first appeared upon its banks, 
was for once circumvented. This is but one item from 
the record of grotesque tricks wrought by changes in 
the river's course: a record of farms located at night 
on one side of the stream, and in the morning on the 
other; of large tracts of land transferred from State 
to State by a sudden switch of this treacherous fluid line 
of boundary; of river boats crashing by night into dry 
land where yesterday a deep stream flowed; of towns 
built up on river trade, utterly dependent upon the river, 
yet finding themselves suddenly deserted by it, like wives 
whose husbands disappear, leaving them withering, help- 
less, and in want. 

Where the upper Mississippi, above St. Louis, flows 
between tall bluffs it attains a grandeur which one ex- 

484 




;^i^ 




o 



> 



VICKSBURG OLD AND NEW 

pects in mighty streams, but that is not the part of the 
river which gets itself talked about in the newspapers 
and in Congress, nor is it the part of the river one in- 
voluntarily thinks of when the name Mississippi is men- 
tioned. The drama, the wonder, the mystery of the 
Mississippi are in the lower river: the river of count- 
less wooded islands, now standing- high and dry, now 
buried to the tree tops in swirling- torrents of muddy 
water; the river of black gnarled snags carried down- 
stream to the Gulf with the speed of motor boats; the 
river whose craft sail on a level with the roofs of 
houses; the river of broken levees, of savage inunda- 
tions. 

The upper river has a beauty which is like that of some 
lovely, stately, placid, well-behaved blond wife. She is 
conventional and correct. You always know where to 
find her. The lower river is a temperamental mistress. 
At one moment she is all sweetness, smiles and playful- 
ness ; at the next vivid and passionate. Even when she 
is at her loveliest there is always the possibility of sud- 
den fury: of her rising in a rage, breaking the furni- 
ture, wrecking the house — yes, and perhaps winding her 
wicked cold arms about you in a final destroying em- 
brace. 

Being the ''Gibraltar of the river" (albeit a Gibraltar 
of clay and not of rock), Vicksburg does not suffer 
when fioods come. Turn your back upon the river, as 
you stand on the platform of the Yazoo & Mississippi 
railroad station, and you may gather at a glance an im- 

485 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

pression of the town piling up the hillside to the east- 
ward. 

The first buildings, occupying the narrow shelf of 
land at the water's edge, are small warehouses, negro 
eating houses, dilapidated little steamship offices, and 
all manner of shacks in want of paint and repairs. 
From the station Mulberry Street runs obhquely up the 
hillside to the south. This street, which forms the main 
thoroughfare to the station, used to be occupied by 
wholesale houses, but has more lately been given over 
largely to a frankly and prominently exposed district of 
commercialized vice — negro and white. Not only is it 
at the very door of Vicksburg, but it parallels, and is 
but one block distant from, the city's main street. 

Other streets, so steep as hardly to be passable, di- 
rectly assault the face of the hill, mounting abruptly to 
Washington Street, which runs on a flat terrace at about 
the height of the top of the station roof, and exposes 
to the view of the newly arrived traveler the unpainted 
wooden backs of a number of frame buildings which, 
though they are but two or three stories high in front, 
reach in some cases a height of five or six stories at 
the rear, owing to the steepness of the hillside to which 
they cling. The roof lines, side walls, windows, chim- 
neys, galleries, posts, and railings of these sad-looking 
structures are all picturesquely out of plumb, and some 
idea of the general dilapidation may be gathered from 
the fact that, one day, while my companion stood on 
the station platform, drawing a picture of this scene, a 

486 



VICKSBURG OLD AND NEW 

brick chimney, a portrait of which he had just completed, 
softly collapsed before our eyes, for all the world like 
a sitter who, having- held a pose too long, faints from 
exhaustion. 

A brief inspection of the life on the galleries of these 
foul old fire traps reveals them as negro tenements ; and, 
though they front on the main street of Vicksburg, it 
should be explained that about here begins the ''nig- 
ger end" of Washington Street — the more prosperous 
portion of the downtown section lying to the south- 
ward, where substantial brick office buildings may be 
seen. 

Between the ragged, bulging tenements above are oc- 
casional narrow gaps through which are revealed cine- 
matographic glimpses of street traffic ; and over the tene- 
ment roofs one catches sight of sundry other buildings, 
these being of brick, and, though old, and in no way 
imposing, yet of a more prosperous and self-respecting 
character than the nearer structures. 

Altogether, the scene, though it is one to delight an 
etcher, is not of a character to inspire hope in the heart 
of a humanitarian, or an expert on sanitation or fire 
prevention. Nor, indeed, would it achieve complete- 
ness, even on the artistic side, were it not for its crown- 
ing feature. Far off, over the roofs and above them, 
making an apex to the composition, and giving to the 
whole picture a background of beauty and of ancient 
dignity, rises the graceful white-columned cupola of 
V^icksburg's old stone courthouse, partially obscured by 

487 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

a feathery green tree top, hinting of space and foliage 
upon the summit of the hill. 

Pamphlets on Vicksburg, issued by railroad companies 
for the enticement of tourists, give most of their space 
to the story of the campaign leading to Grant's siege of 
Vicksburg and to descriptions of the various operations 
in the siege — the battlefield, now a national military 
park, being considered the city's chief object of interest. 

Though I am not constitutionally enthusiastic about 
seeing battlefields, I must admit that I found the field 
of Vicksburg engrossing. The siege of a small city pre- 
sents a comparatively simple and compact military prob- 
lem which is, therefore, comprehensible to the civilian 
mind, and in addition to this the Vicksburg battlefield is 
splendidly preserved and marked, so that the visitor may 
easily reconstruct the conflict. 

The park, which covers the fighting area, forms a 
loose crescent-shaped strip over the hills which surround 
the city, its points abutting on the river above and below. 
The chief drives of the park parallel each other, the 
inner one, Confederate Avenue, following, as nearly as 
the hills permit, the city's line of defense, while the 
other, Union Avenue, forms an outer semicircle and fol- 
lows, in a similar manner, the trenches of the attacking 

forces. 

That the battlefield is so well preserved is due in part 
to man and in part to Nature. Many of the hills of 
Warren County, in which Vicksburg is situated, are 

488 



VICKSBURG OLD AND NEW 

composed of a curious soft limy clay, called marl, which, 
normally, has not the solidity of soft chalk. Marse 
Harris Dickson, who knows more about Vicksburg — 
and also about negroes, common law, floods, funny 
stories, geology, and rivers — than any other man in Mis- 
sissippi, tells me that this marl was deposited by the 
river, in the form of silt, centuries ago, and that it was 
later thrown up into hills by volcanic action. He did 
not live in Vicksburg when this took place, but deduces 
his facts from the discovery of the remains of shellfish 
in the soil of the hills. 

Whatever its geological origin, this soil has some very 
strange characteristics. In composition it is neither 
stone nor sand, but a cross between the two — brown and 
brittle. One can easily crush it to dust in one's hand, 
in which form it has about the consistency of talcum 
powder, and it may be added that when this brown pow- 
der is seized by the winds and whirled about, Vicksburg 
becomes one of the most mercilessly dusty cities on this 
earth. 

On exposed slopes the marl washes very badly, form- 
ing great caving gullies, but, curiously enough, where it 
is exposed perpendicularly it does not wash, but slicks 
over on the outside, and stands almost as well as soft 
sandstone, although you can readily dig into it with your 
fingers. 

Many of the highways leading in and out of the city 
pass between tall walls of this peculiar soil, through 
deep cuts which a visitor might naturally take for the 

489 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

result of careful grading by the road builders; but 
Marse Harris Dickson tells me that the cuts are entirely 
the result of erosion wrought by a hundred years of 
wheeled traffic. 

So far as I know there is but one man who has wit- 
nessed this phenomenon without being impressed. 
That man is Samuel Merwin. Merwin went down and 
visited Marse Harris in Vicksburg, and saw all the 
sights. He was polite about the battlefield, and the 
river, and the negro stories, and everything else, until 
Marse Harris showed him how the highways had eroded 
through the hills. That did not seem to impress him 
at all. Moreover, instead of being tactful, he started 
telling about his trip to China. In China, he said, there 
were similar formations, but, as the civilization of China 
was much older than that of Vicksburg (fancy his hav- 
ing said a thing like that!) the gorges over there had 
eroded to a much greater extent. He said he had seen 
them three hundred feet deep. 

The more Marse Harris tried to get him to say some- 
thing a little bit complimentary about the Vicksburg ero- 
sions, the more Merwin boasted about China. He de- 
clared that the Vicksburg erosions did n't amount to a 
hill of beans compared with what he could show Marse 
Harris if Marse Harris would go with him to a certain 
point on the banks of the Wa Choo, in the province of 
Lang Pang Si. 

Evidently he harped on this until he touched not only 
his host's local pride, but his pride of discovery. Be- 

490 



VICKSBURG OLD AND NEW 

fore that, Marse Harris had been content to stick around 
in Mississippi, with perhaps a Httle run down to New 
Orleans for Mardi Gras, or up to Dogtail to see a break 
in the levee, but after Merwin's talk about China he 
began to grow restless, and it is generally said in Vicks- 
burg that it was purely in order to have something to 
tell Merwin about, the next time he saw him, that he 
made his celebrated trip to the source of the Nile. As 
for Merwin, he has never been invited back to Vicks- 
burg, and it is to be observed that, even to this day, 
Marse Harris, by nature of a sunny disposition, shows 
signs of erosion of the spirit when China is mentioned. 
It is apropos the battlefield that I mention the pecul- 
iarities of the soil. Had the bare ground been exposed 
to the rains of a few years, the details of redoubts, 
trenches, gun positions, saps, and all other military 
works would have melted away. Fortunately, how- 
ever, there is a kind of tough, strong-rooted grass, called 
Bermuda grass, indigenous to that part of the country, 
and this grass quickly covered the battlefield, holding 
the soil together so eiiectually that all outlines are prac- 
tically embalmed. So, although those in charge of tHe 
park have contributed not a little to its preservation — 
putting old guns in their former places, perpetuating 
saps with concrete work, and placing white markers on 
the hillsides, to show how far up those hillsides the as- 
saulting Union troops made their way in various historic 
charges — it is due most of all to Nature that the Vicks- 
burg battlefield so well explains itself. 

491 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Could Grant and Pemberton look to-day upon the hills 
and valleys where surged their six weeks' struggle for 
possession of the city, I doubt that they would find any 
important landmark wanting, and it is certain that they 
could not say, as Wellington did when he revisited 
Waterloo: ''They have spoiled my battlefield!" 

Besides the old guns and the markers, the field is 
dotted over with observation towers and all manner of 
memorials. Of the latter, the marble pantheon erected 
by the State of Illinois, and the beautiful marble and 
bronze memorial structure of the State of Iowa, are 
probably the finest. The marble column erected by W^is- 
consin carries at its summit a great bronze ef^gy of 
"Old Abe," the famous eagle, mascot of the Wisconsin 
troops. Guides to the battlefield are prone to relate 
to visitors — especially, I suspect, those whose accents 
betray a Northern origin — how "Old Abe," the bird of 
battle, went home and disgraced himself, after the war, 
by his ungentlemanly action in laying a setting of eggs. 

The handsomest monument to an individual which I 
saw upon the battlefield was the admirable bronze bust 
of Major General Martin L. Smith, C. S. A., and the 
one which appealed most to my imagination was also 
a memorial to a Confederate soldier: Brigadier- 
General States Rights Gist. Is there not something Ro- 
man in the thought that, thirty or more years be- 
fore the war, a southern father gave his new-born son 
that name, dedicating him, as it were, to the cause of 
States Rights, and that the son so dedicated gave his 

492 



o Bl 









C3 







VICKSBURG OLD AND NEW 

life in battle for that cause? The name upon that stone 
made me better understand the depth of feeling that 
existed in the South long years before the War, and 
gave me a clearer comprehension of at least one reason 
why the South made such a gallant fight. 

Of more than fourscore national cemeteries in the 
United States, that which stands among the hills and 
trees, overlooking the river, at the northerly end of the 
military park, is one of the most beautiful, and is, with 
the single exception of Arlington, the largest. It con- 
tains the graves of nearly 17,000 Union soldiers lost in 
this campaign — three-fourths of them ''unknown" ! 

Lt is interesting to note that, because the surrender 
of Pemberton to Grant occurred on July 4, that date 
has, in this region, associations less happy than attach 
to it elsewhere, and that the Fourth has not been cele- 
brated in Vicksburg since the Civil War, except by the 
negroes, who have taken it for their especial holiday. 
This reminds me, also, of the fact that, throughout the 
South, Christmas, instead of the Fourth of July, is cele- 
brated with fireworks. 



493 



CHAPTER XLVI 
SHREDS AND PATCHES 

IT was Marse Harris Dickson who showed us the 
battlefield. As we were driving along in the motor 
we overtook an old trudging negro, very pictur- 
esque in his ragged clothing and battered soft hat. My 
companion said that he would like to take a picture of 
this wayfarer, and asked Marse Harris, who, as author 
of the ''Old Reliable" stories, seemed best fitted for. the 
task, to arrange the matter. The automobile, having 
passed the negro, was stopped to wait for him to catch 
up. Presently, as he came by, Marse Harris addressed 
him in that friendly way Southerners have with negroes. 

"Want your picture taken, old man?" he asked. 

To which the negro, still shuffling along, replied : 

*T ain't got no money." 

Marse Harris, knowing the workings of the negro 
mind, got the full import of this reply at once, but I 
must confess that a moment passed before I realized 
that the negro took us for itinerant photographers look- 
ing for trade. 

With the possible exception of Irvin S. Cobb, I sup- 
pose Marse Harris has the largest collection of negro 
character stories of any individual in this country. 

494 



SHREDS AND PATCHES 

And let me say, in this connection, that I know of no 
better place than Vicksburg for the study of southern 
negro types. 

One day Marse Harris was passing by the jail. It 
was hot weather, and the jail windows were open. Be- 
hind the bars of one window, looking down upon the 
street, stood a negro prisoner. As Marse Harris passed 
this window a negro wearing a large watch chain came 
by in the other direction. His watch chain evidently 
caught the eye of the prisoner, who spoke in a wistful 
tone, demanding: 

''What tahme is it, brotha?" 

''What foh you want t' know what tahme it is?" re- 
turned the other sternly, as he continued upon his way. 
"You ain't goin' nowhere." 

Through Marse Harris I obtained a copy of a let- 
ter written by a negro named Walter to Mr. W. H. 
Reeve of Vicksburg. Walter had looked out for Air. 
Reeve's live stock during a flood, and had certain ideas 
about what should be done for him in consequence. I 
give the letter exactly as it was written, merely insert- 
ing, parenthetically, a few explanatory words : 

Mr. H W Reeve an bos dear sir I like to git me a par [pair] 
second hand pance dont a fail or eke I zaill be dotit [zvithoiit] a 
pare to go eny where so send me something. Dont a fail an send 
me a par of yoiire pance [or] i zvill hafter go to work for some- 
body to git some. I don't think you all is treating me right at all 
I stayed ivith youre hogs in the zvater till the last tening [attend- 
ing] to them and I dont think that youre oder [ought to] fail me 
bout a pare old pance Walter 

495 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Though I cannot see just why it should be so, it 
seemed to us that the Vicksburg negroes were happier 
than those of any other place we visited. Whether 
drowsing in the sun, walking the streets, doing a little 
stroke of work, fishing, or sitting gabbling on the curb- 
stone, they were upon the whole as cheerful and as com- 
ical a lot of people as I ever saw. 

"Wha' you-all goin' to?" I heard a negro ask a group 
of mulatto women, in clean starched gingham dresses, 
who went flouncing by him on the street one Saturday 
afternoon. 

''Oh," returned one of the women, with the elaborate 
superiority of a member of the class of idle rich, "we 're 
just serenadin' 'round." 

''Serenading," as she used the word, meant a prome- 
nade about the town. 

Perhaps the happiness of the negro, here, has to do 
with the lazy life of the river. The succulent catfish is 
easily obtainable for food, and the wages of the rousta- 
bout — or "rouster," as he is called for short — are good. 

The rouster, in his red undershirt, with a bale hook 
hung in his belt, is a figure to fascinate the eye. When 
he works — which is to say, when he is out of funds — 
he works hard. He will swing a two-hundred-pound 
sack to his back and do fancy steps as he marches with 
it up the springy gangplank to the river steamer's deck, 
uttering now and then a strange, barbaric snatch of 
song. He has no home, no family, no responsibilities. 
An ignorant deck hand can earn from forty to one hun- 

496 



SHREDS AND PATCHES 

dred dollars a month. Pay him off at the end of the 
trip, let him get ashore with his money, and he is gone. 
Without deck hands the steamer cannot move. For 
many years there has been known to river captains a 
simple way out of this difficulty. Pay the rousters off 
a few hours before the end of the trip. Say there are 
twenty of them, and that each is given twenty dollars. 
They clear a space on deck and begin shooting craps. 
No one interferes. By the time the trip ends most of 
the money has passed into the hands of four or five ; the 
rest are "broke" and therefore remain at work. 
Yet despite the ingenuity of those who have the negro 
labor problem to contend with, Marse Harris tells me 
that there have been times when the levee was lined 
with steamers, full-loaded, but unable to depart for want 
of a crew. Not that there was any lack of roustabouts 
in town, but that, money being plentiful, they would not 
work. In such times perishable freight rots and is 
throv/n overboard. 

I am conscious of a tendency, in writing of Vicks- 
burg, to dwell continually upon the negro and the river 
for the reason that the two form an enchanting back- 
ground for the whole life of the place. This should not, 
however, be taken to indicate that Vicksburg is not a 
city of agreeable homes and pleasant society, or that its 
only picturesqueness is to be found in the river and 
negro life. 

The point is that Vicksburg is a patchwork city. 
The National Park Hotel, its chief hostelry, is an un- 

497 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

usually good hotel for a city of this size, and Washing- 
ton Street, in the neighborhood of the hotel, has the look 
of a busy city street; yet on the same square with the 
hotel, on the street below, nearer the river, is an tin- 
wholesome negro settlement. So it is all over the city; 
the "white folks" live on the hills, while the "niggers" 
inhabit the adjacent bottoms. Nor is that the only 
sense in which the town is patched together. Some of 
the most charming of the city's old homes are tucked 
away where the visitor is not likely to see them without 
deliberate search. Such a place, for example, is the old 
Klein house, standing amid lawns and old-fashioned 
gardens, on the bluff overlooking the Mississippi. This 
house was built long before the railroad came to Vicks- 
burg, cutting off its grounds from the river. A patch 
in the paneling of the front door shows where a cannon 
ball passed through at the time of the bombardment, 
and the ball itself may still be seen embedded in the 
woodwork of one of the rooms within. 

And there are other patches. Near the old court- 
house, which rears itself so handsomely at the summit 
of a series of terraces leading up from the street, are a 
number of old sand roads which must be to-day almost 
as they were in the heyday of the river's glory, when 
the region in which the courthouse stands was the prin- 
cipal part of the city — the days of heavy drinking and 
gambling, dueling, slave markets, and steamboat races. 
These streets are not the streets of a city, but of a small 
town. So, too, where Adams Street crosses Grove, it 

498 



SHREDS AND PATCHES 

has the appearance of a country lane, the road repre- 
sented by a pair of wheel tracks running through the 
grass ; but Cherry Street, only a block distant, is built up 
with city houses and has a good asphalt pavement and 
a trolley line. 



499 



CHAPTER XLVII 
THE BAFFLING MISSISSIPPI 

AS inevitably as water flows down the hills of 
Vicksburg to the river, the visitor's thoughts 
flow down always to the great spectacular, his- 
toric, mischievous, dominating stream. 

Mark Twain, in that glorious book, "Life on the 
Mississippi," declared, in speaking of the eternal prob- 
lems of the Mississippi, that as there are not enough 
citizens of Louisiana to take care of all the theories 
about the river at the rate of one theory per individual, 
each citizen has two theories. That is the case to-day 
as it was when Mark Twain was a pilot. I have heard 
half a dozen prominent men, some of them engineers, 
state their views as to what should be done. Each view 
seemed sound, yet all were at variance. 

Consider, for example, that part of the river lying be- 
tween Vicksburg and the mouth. Here, quite aside 
from the problem as to the hands in which river-control 
work should be vested — a very great problem in itself — 
three separate and distinct physical problems are pre- 
sented. 

From Vicksburg to Red River Landing there are 
swift currents which deposit silt only at the edge of the 

500 



THE BAFFLING MISSISSIPPI 

bank, or on sand bars. From Red River Landing to 
New Orleans the problem is different ; here the channel 
is much improved, and slow currents at the sides of the 
river, between the natural river bank and the levee, de- 
posit silt in the old "borrow pits" — pits from which the 
earth was dug for the building of the levees — filling 
them up, whereas, farther up the river, the borrow pits, 
instead of filling up, are likely to scour, undermining 
the levee. From New Orleans to the head of the Passes 
— these being the three main channels by which the river 
empties into the Gulf — the banks between the natural 
river bed and the levees build up with silt much more 
rapidly than at any other point on the entire stream; 
here there are no sand bars, and the banks cave very 
little. In this part of the river it is not current, but 
wind, which forms the great problem, for the winds are 
terrific at certain times of year, and when they blow 
violently against the current, waves are formed which 
wash out the levees. 

This is the barest outline of three chief physical prob- 
lems with which river engineers must contend. There 
are countless others which have to be met in various 
ways. In some places the water seeps through, under 
the levee, and bubbles up, like a spring, from the ground 
outside. This, if allowed to continue, soon undermines 
the levee and causes a break. The method of fighting 
such a seepage is interesting. When the water begins 
to bubble up, a hollow tower of sand-filled sacks is built 
up about the place where it comes from the ground, and 

501 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

when this tower has raised the level of the water within 
it to that of the river, the pressure is of course removed, 
on the siphon principle. 

As river-control work is at present handled, there is 
no centralization of authority, and friction, waste, and 
politics consequently play a large part. 

Consider, for example, the situation in the State of 
Louisiana. Here control is, broadly speaking, in the 
hands of three separate bodies : ( i ) the United States 
army engineer, who disburses the money appropriated 
by Congress for levees and bank revetment, work- 
ing under direction of the Mississippi River Commis- 
sion; (2) the State Board of Engineers, which disburses 
Louisiana State funds wherever it sees fit, and which, 
incidentally, does not use, in its work, the same specifi- 
cations as are used by the Government; and (3) the 
local levee boards, of which there are eight in Louisiana, 
one to each river parish — a parish being what is else- 
where called a county. Each of these eight boards 
has authority as to where parish money shall be spent 
within its district, and it may be added that this last 
group (considering the eight boards as a unit) has the 
largest sum to spend on river work. 

The result of this division of authority creates chaos, 
and has built up a situation infinitely worse than was 
faced by General Goethals when Congress attempted to 
divide control in the building of the Panama Canal. It 
will be remembered that, in that case, a commission was 
appointed, but that Roosevelt circumvented Congress by 

502 



THE BAFFLING MISSISSIPPI 
making General Goethals head of the commission with 

full powers. 

While the canal was in course of construction, Gen- 
eral Goethals appeared before the Senate Committee on 
Commerce. When asked what he knew of levee build- 
ing and work on the Mississippi, he replied: 

"I don't know a single, solitary thing about the work 
on the Mississippi except that it is being carried on un- 
der the annual appropriation system. If we had that 
system to hamper us, the Panama Canal would not be 
completed on time and within the estimate, as it will 
be. That system leaves engineers in uncertainty as to 
how much they may plan to do in the year ahead of 
them. Big works cannot be completed economically, 
either as to time or money, unless the man who is mak- 
ing the plan can proceed upon the theory that the money 
will be forthcoming as fast as he can economically spend 

it." 

In view of the foregoing, I cannot myself claim to be 
free from river theory. It seems to me clear that the 
Mississippi should be under exclusive Federal control 
from source to mouth; that the various commissions 
should be abolished, and that the whole matter should 
be in the hands of the chief of United States Engineers, 
who would have ample funds with which to carry on 
work of a permanent character. 

As one among countless Items pointing to the need 
of Federal control, consider the case of the Tensas Levee 
Board, one of the eight local boards In Louisiana. This 

503 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

board does not build any levees whatsoever in the 
State of Louisiana, but does all its work with Lou- 
isiana money, in the State of Arkansas, where it has 
constructed, and maintains, eighty-two miles of levees, 
protecting the northeastern corner of Louisiana from 
floods which would originate in Arkansas. These same 
levees, however, also protect large tracts of land in Ar- 
kansas, for which protection the inhabitants of Arkan- 
sas do not pay one cent, knowing that their Louisiana 
neighbors are forced, for their own safety, to do the 
work. 

Cairo, Illinois, is the barometer of the river's rise 
and fall, the gage at that point being used as the basis 
for estimates for the entire river below Cairo. These 
estimates are made by computations which are so ac- 
curate that Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans 
know, days or even weeks in advance, when to expect 
high water, and within a few inches of the precise height 
the floods will reach. 

Some years since, the United States engineer in charge 
of a river district embracing a part of Louisiana, noti- 
fied the local levee boards that unusually high water 
might be expected on a certain date and that several 
hundred miles of levees would have to be ''capped" in 
order to prevent overflow. The local boards in turn no- 
tified the planters, in sections where capping was neces- 
sary. 

One of the planters so notified was an old Cajun — 
Cajun being a corruption of the word "Acadian," denot- 

504 






o 



p 

^ 






Crq 




f<'^' "M .4- 

-» iimi ir ! fc- - ^ - 



-r^^iS^^^ 



.: "^ 



-^' 



THE BAFFLING MISSISSIPPI 

ing those persons of French descent driven from Acadia, 
in Canada, by the British many years ago. This old 
man did not beheve that the river w^ould rise as high as 
predicted and was not disposed to cap his levee. 

"But," said the member of the local levee board, who 
interviewed him, "the United States engineer says you 
will have to put two twelve-inch planks, one above the 
other, on top of your levee, and back them with earth, or 
else the water will come over." 

At last the old fellow consented. 

Presently the floods came. The water mounted, 
mounted, mounted. Soon it was halfway up the lower 
plank; then it rose to the upper one. When it reached 
the middle of that plank the Cajun became alarmed and 
called upon the local levee board for help to raise the 
capping higher still. 

"No," said the local board member who had given 
him the original warning, "that will not be necessary. 
I have just talked to the United States engineer. He 
says the water will drop to-morrow." 

The old man was skeptical, however, and was not sat- 
isfied imtil the board member agreed that in case the 
flood failed to abate next day, as predicted, the board 
should do the extra capping. This settled, a nail was 
driven into the upper plank to mark the water's height. 

Sure enough, on the following morning the river had 
dropped away from the nail, and thereafter it continued 
to fall. 

After watching the decline for several days, the Ca- 

505 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

jun, very much puzzled, called on his friend, the local 
levee board member, to talk the matter over. 

''Say," he demanded, "what kinda man dis United 
States engineer is, anyhow ? Firs' he tell when de water 
comes. Den he tell jus' how high she comes. Den he 
tell jus' when she 's agoin' to fall. What kinda man is 
dat, anyhow? Is he been one Voodoo?" 

The spirit of the people of Arkansas, Mississippi, and 
Louisiana, who live, in flood time, in the precarious 
safety afforded by the levees, is characterized by the 
same optimistic fatalism that is to be found among the 
inhabitants of the slopes of Vesuvius in time of erup- 
tion. 

One night, a good many years ago, I ascended Vesu- 
vius at such a time, and I remember well a talk I had 
with a man who gave me wine and sausage in his house, 
far up on the mountain side, at about two o'clock that 
morning. 

Seventeen streams of lava were already flowing 
down, and signs of imminent disaster were at hand. 

"Aren't you afraid to stay here with your family?" 
I asked the man. 

"No," he replied. "Three times I have seen it worse 
than this. I have lived here always, and" — with a good 
Italian smile — "it is evident, signore, that I am still 
alive." 

Less than a week later I read in a newspaper that 
this man's house, which was known as Casa Bianca, to- 

506 



THE BAFFLING MISSISSIPPI 

gether with his vineyards and his precious wine cellars, 
tunneled into the mountain side, had been obliterated by 
a stream of lava. 

Precisely as he went about his affairs when destruc- 
tion threatened, so do the planters along the Mississippi. 
But there is this difference: against Vesuvius no pre- 
caution can avail ; whereas, in the case of a Mississippi 
flood, foresight may save life and property. For in- 
stance, many planters build mounds large enough to ac- 
commodate their barns, and all their live stock. Like- 
wise, when floods are coming, they construct false floors 
in their houses, elevating their furniture above high- 
water mark, so that, if the whole house is not carried 
away, they may return to something less than utter 
ruin. It is the custom, also, to place ladders against 
trees, in the branches of which provisions are kept in 
time of danger, and to have skiffs, containing food and 
water, ready on the galleries of the houses. 



507 



CHAPTER XLVIII 
OLD RIVER DAYS 

AMONG the honored citizens of Vicksburg, at the 
time of our visit, were a number of old steam- 
boat men who knew the river in its golden days ; 
among them, Captain "Mose" Smith, Captain Tom 
Young, Captain W. S. (''Billy") Jones, and Captain S. 
H. Parisot — the latter probably the oldest surviving 
Mississippi River captain. 

We were sent to see Captain Parisot at his house, 
where he received us kindly, entertained us for an hour 
or more with reminiscences, and showed us a most in- 
teresting collection of souvenirs of the river, including 
photographs of famous boats, famous deck loads of cot- 
ton, and famous characters: among the latter the cele- 
brated rivals, Captain John W. Cannon of the Robert 
E. Lee and Captain Thomas P. Leathers of the Natchez. 
Captain Parisot knew both these men well, and was him- 
self aboard the Lee at the time of her famous race with 
the Natchez from New Orleans to St. Louis. 

"We left New Orleans 3^ minutes ahead of the 
Natchez," said Captain Parisot, "made the run to Vicks- 
burg in 24 hours and 28 minutes, beat her to Cairo by 

508 



OLD RIVER DAYS 

I hour and 12 minutes, and to St. Louis by more than 3 
hours." 

Captain Parisot's father was a soldier under Na- 
poleon I, and moved to Warren County, Mississippi, 
after having been wounded at Moscow. He built, at 
the foot of Main Street, Vicksburg, the first brick house 
that city had. 

"There was a law in France," said the captain, "that 
any citizen absent from the country for thirty-five years 
lost all claim to property. My father's people were 
pretty well off, so in '42 he started back, but he was 
taken ill and died in New Orleans." 

Captain Parisot was born in 1828, and in 1847 began 
"learning the river." In 1854 he became part owner of 
a boat, and three years later purchased one of his 
own. 

'T bought her in Cincinnati," he said. Then, reflec- 
tively, he added: "There was a good deal of drinking 
in those days. When I brought her down on her first 
trip I had 183 tons of freight, and 500 barrels of whisky, 
from Cincinnati, for one little country store — Barksdale 
& McFarland's, at Yazoo City." 

"There was a good deal of gambling, too, was n't 
there ?" one of us suggested. 

"There was indeed," smiled the old captain. "Every 
steamboat was a gambling house, and there used to be 
big games before the war." 

"How big?" 

"Well," he returned, "as Captain Leathers once put 

509 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

it, it used to be 'nigger ante and plantation limit.' And 
that 's no joke about playing for niggers either. Those 
old planters would play for anything. I 've known peo- 
ple to get on a boat at Yazoo City to come to Vicks- 
burg, and get in a game, and never get off at Vicks- 
burg at all — just go back to Yazoo; yes, and come down 
again, to keep the game going. 

"There was a saloon called the Exchange near our 
house in Yazoo, and I remember once my father got 
into a game, there, with a gambler named Spence 
Thrift. That was before the war. Thrift was a ter- 
rible stiff bluffer. When he got ready to clean up, 
he 'd shove up his whole pile. Well, he did that to my 
father. Thrift's pile was twenty-two hundred dollars, 
and all my father had in front of him was eight hundred. 
But he owned a young negro named Calvin, so he called 
Calvin, and told him: 'Here, boy! Jump up on the 
table.' That equalled the gambler's pile; and it finished 
him — he threw down his hand, beaten. 

"Business in those times was done largely on friend- 
ship. It used to be said that I 'owned' the Yazoo River 
when I was running my line. I knew everybody up 
there. They were my friends, and they gave me their 
business for that reason, and also because I brought the 
cotton down here to Vicksburg, and reshipped it from 
here on, down the river. It was considered an advan- 
tage to reship cotton because moving it from one boat to 
another knocked the mud off the bales. 

"There used to be some enormous cargoes of cotton 

510 



OLD RIVER DAYS 

carried. The largest boat on the river was the Henry 
Frank, owned by Frank Hicks of Memphis. She ran 
between Memphis and New Orleans, and on one trip 
carried 9226 bales. Those were the old-style bales, of 
course. They weighed 425 to 450 pounds each, as 
against 550 to 600 pounds, which is the weight of a bale 
to-day, now that powerful machinery is used to make 
them. The heavy bale came into use partly to beat 
transportation charges, as rates were not made by 
weight, but at so much per bale. 

"The land up the Yazoo belonged to the State, and 
the State sold it for $1.25 per acre. The fellows that 
got up there first were n't any too anxious to see new 
folks coming in and entering land. Used to try all kinds 
of schemes to get them out. 

"There were two brothers up there named Parker. 
One of them was a surveyor — we called him 'Baldy' — 
and the other was lumbering, getting timber out of the 
cypress breaks and rafting it down. Almost all the 
timber used from Vicksburg to New Orleans came out 
of there. 

"One time a man came up the Yazoo to take up land 
and went to stop with Baldy Parker. When they sat 
down to dinner Baldy took some flour and sprinkled it 
all over his meat. 

" 'What 's that?' asked the stranger. 

" 'Quinine,' says Baldy. 'Haven't you got any?' 

" 'No,' says the fellow ; 'what would I want it for ?' 

" 'You '11 find out if you go out there in the swamps,' 

511 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Baldy tells him. 'It 's full of malaria. We eat quinine 
on everything.' 

'The fellow was quiet through the rest of the meal. 

"Pretty soon they got up to go out, and Baldy took up 
a pair of stovepipes. 

" 'What do you do with them pipes?' asks the stran- 
ger. 

" 'Wear 'em, of course,' says Baldy. 'Elave n't you 
got any?' 

" 'No,' says the fellow. 'What for?' 

" 'Why,' says Baldy, 'the rattlesnakes out there will 
bite the legs right off of you.' 

"With that the fellow had enough. He didn't go 
any farther, but turned around and took the boat down 
the river." 

In all his years as captain and line owner on the river. 
Captain Parisot never lost a vessel. "I never insured 
against sinking," he told us. "Just against fire. But 
I got the best pilots I could hire. Tn all I built twenty- 
seven steamboats. I had $150,000 worth of boats when 
I sold my line in 1880. After I sold they did lose some 
boats." 

Later we saw Captain "Billy" Jones, a much younger 
man than Captain Parisot, yet old enough to have known 
the river in its prime. Captain Jones deserted the river 
years ago, and is now a golfer with a prosperous bank- 
ing business on the side. 

"Captain Parisot was right when he said business on 
the river was done largely on friendship," said Captain 

512 



OLD RIVER DAYS 

Jones. "Also business used to be turned down for the 
opposite reason. There was a historic case of that in 
this town. 

"Captain Tom Leathers was in the habit of refus- 
ing to take freight on the Natchez if he did n't Hke the 
shipper or the consignee. For some reason or other he 
had it in for the firm of Lamkin & Eggleston, wholesale 
grocers here in Vicksburg, and declined their freight. 
They sued him in the Circuit Court and got judgment. 
Leathers carried the case to the Supreme Court, but the 
verdict was sustained and he had to pay $2500 damages. 
He was furious. 

" 'What 's the use,' he said, 'of being a steamboat cap- 
tain if you can't tell people to go to hell ?' " 

It is the lamentable fact, and I must face it, and so 
must you if you intend to read on, that the language 
of the river was rough. At least ninety-nine out of 
every hundred river stories are, therefore, not printable 
in full. Either they must be vitiated by deletions, or 
interpreted at certain points by blanks and "blanketys." 
As for me, I prefer the blankety-blanks and I consider 
that this method of avoiding the complete truth re- 
lieves me of all responsibility. And of course, if that is 
so, it absolves, at the same time, good Captain "Billy" 
Jones, or any one else who may have happened to tell me 
the stories. 

Both Leathers and Cannon were large, powerful men, 
and they always hated each other. Leathers was never 
popular, for he was very arrogant, but he had a great 

513 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

reputation for pushing the Matches through on time. 
Also, such friends as he did have always stuck by him. 

Something of the feeling between the two old river 
characters is revealed in the following story related by 
Captain Jones : 

''Ed Snodgrass, who lived in St. Joseph, La., was a 
friend of both Cannon and Leathers. When the Mat- 
ches would arrive at St. Joseph, he would go and give 
Leathers news about Cannon, and when the Lee came in 
he would see Cannon and tell him about Leathers. 

''Well, one time Leathers was laid up with a car- 
buncle on his back, and brought a doctor up on the boat 
with him. So, of course, Ed Snodgrass told Cannon 
about it when he came along. 

" 'A carbuncle, eh?' said Cannon. 

" 'Yes," said Ed. 

" 'W^ll,' said Cannon, 'you tell the old blankety- 
blank-blank that I had a brother — a bigger, stronger 
man than I am — and he had one o' them things and died 
in two weeks.' 

"Soon after that Cannon made a misstep when back- 
ing the Matches out, at Natchez, and fell, breaking his 
collar bone. Of course Ed Snodgrass gave the news to 
Leathers when he came along. 

"'Huh!' said Leathers. 'His collar bone, eh? You 
tell the old blankety-blank-blank that I wish it had been 
his blankety-blank neck !' " 

I asked Captain Jones for stories about gambling. 

"After the war," he said, "there were n't the big 

514 



OLD RIVER DAYS 

poker games there used to be. Mostly we had sucker 
games then. There was a gambler named George 
Duval who wrote a book — or, rather, he had somebody 
write it for him, for he was a very ignorant fellow, and 
began his life calking the seams of boats in a shipyard. 
He had a partner who was known as 'Jew Mose,' who 
used to dress like a rich planter. He wore a broad- 
brimmed hat and a very elegant tail coat, and was a big, 
handsome man. 

"After the boat left New Orleans, this 'Jew Mose' 
would disguise himself with whiskers and goggles, go to 
the barber shop and lay out his game. George Duval 
and a fellow called 'Canada Bill' were the cappers. 
They would bring in suckers, get their money, and gen- 
erally get off the boat about Baton Rouge. 

''Once when I was a clerk on the Robert E. Lee, 
Duval got a young fellow in tow, and the young fellow 
wanted to bet on the game, but he had a friend with him, 
and his friend kept pulling him away. 

"Later, when Duval had given up the idea of getting 
this young fellow's money, and closed up his game, he 
appeared in the social hall of the boat with a small bag 
held up to his face. 

"Somebody asked him what was in the bag. 

" 'It 's hot salt,' he said. 'I 've got a toothache, and a 
bag of hot salt is the best thing in the world for tooth- 
ache.' 

"Presently, when he went to his stateroom to get 
something, he left the bag of salt on the stove to heat it 

515 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

up. While he was gone somebody suggested, as a 
joke, that they dump out the salt and fill the bag with 
ashes, instead. So they did it. And when Duval came 
back he held it up to his face again, and seemed per- 
fectly satisfied. 

" 'How does it feel now?' one of the fellows asked. 

" Tine,' said Duval. 'Hot salt is the best thing 
going.' 

''At that, the man who had prevented the young fel- 
low from betting, down in the barber shop, earlier in the 
day, offered to bet Duval a hundred dollars that the bag 
did n't contain salt. 

"Duval took the bet and raised him back another hun- 
dred. But the man had only fifty dollars left. EIow^- 
ever, another fellow, standing in the crowd, put in the 
extra fifty to make two hundred dollars a side. 

"Then Duval opened the bag, and it ivas salt. He 
had changed the bags, and the fellows who worked up 
the trick were his cappers." 

One of the old-time river gamblers was an individual, 
blind in one eye, known as "One-eyed Murphy." Mur- 
phy was an extremely artful manipulator of cards, and 
made a business of cheating. One day, shortly after 
the Natchez had backed out from New Orleans and got 
under way, Marion Knowles, a picturesque gentleman 
of the period, and one who had the reputation of being 
polite even in the most trying circumstances, and no 
matter how well he had dined, came in and stood for a 
time as a spectator beside a table at which Murphy was 

516 



OLD RIVER DAYS 

playing poker with some guileless planters. Mr. 
Knowles was not himself guileless, and very shortly he 
perceived that the one-eyed gambler was dealing himself 
cards from the bottom of the pack. Thereupon he drew 
his revolver from his pocket and rapping with it on the 
table addressed the assembly : 

"Gentlemen," he said, speaking in courtly fashion, 
"I regret to say that there is something wrong here. I 
will not call any names, neither will I make any personal 
allusions. But if it does n't stop, damn me if I don't 
shoot his other eye out!" 

I cannot drop the river, and stories of river gam- 
bling, without referring to one more tale which is a 
classic. It is a long story about a big poker game, and 
to tell it properly one must know the exact words. I do 
not know them, and therefore shall not attempt to tell 
the whole story, but shall give you only the beginning. 

It is supposed to be told by a Virginian. 

"There was me," he says, "and another very distin- 
guished gentleman from Virginia and a gentleman from 
Kentucky, and a man from Ohio, and a fellow from 
New York, and a blankety-blank from Boston — " 

That is all I know of the story, but I can guess who 
got the money in that game. 

Can't you? 



517 



CHAPTER XLIX 
WHAT MEMPHIS HAS ENDURED 

AN article on Memphis, published in the year 1855, 
gives the population of the place as about 
13,000 (one quarter of the number slaves), and 
calls Memphis "the most promising town in the South- 
west. It predicts that a railroad will some day connect 
Memphis with Little Rock, Arkansas, and that a direct 
line between Memphis and Cincinnati may even be con- 
structed. This article begins the history of Memphis 
in. the year 1820, when the place had 50 inhabitants. 
In 1840 the settlement had grown to 1,700, and fif- 
teen years thereafter it was almost eight times that 
size. 

Your Memphian, however, is not at all content to 
date from 1820. He begins the history of Memphis 
with the date May 8, 1541 — a time when Henry VIII 
was establishing new matrimonial records in England, 
when Queen Elizabeth was a little girl, and Shakes- 
peare, Bacon, Galileo and Cromwell were yet unborn. 
For that was the date when a Spanish gentleman bear- 
ing some personal resemblance to ''Uncle Joe" Cannon 
— though he was younger, had black hair and beard, 
was differently dressed and did not chew long black 

S18 



WHAT MEMPHIS HAS ENDURED 

cigars — arrived at the lower Chickasaw Bluffs, from 
which the city of Memphis now overlooks the Missis- 
sippi River. This gentleman was Hernando De Soto, 
and with his soldiers and horses he had marched from 
Tampa Bay, Florida, hunting for El Dorado, but find- 
ing instead, a lot of poor villages peopled by savages 
whom he killed in large numbers, having been brought 
up to that sort of work by Pizarro, under whom he 
served in the conquest of Peru. It seems to be well 
established, through records left by De Soto's secretary, 
and other men who were with him, and through land- 
marks mentioned by them, that De Soto and his com- 
mand camped where Memphis stands, crossed the Mis- 
sissippi at this point in boats which they built for the 
purpose, and marched on to an Indian village situated 
on the mound, a few miles distant, which now gives 
Mound City, Arkansas, its name. One hundred and 
thirty-two years later Marquette passed by on his way 
down the river, and nine years after him La Salle, but 
so far as is known, neither stopped at the site of Mem- 
phis, though they must have noticed as they passed, 
that the river is narrower here than at any point within 
hundreds of miles, and that the Chickasaw Bluffs afford 
about as good a place for a settlement as may be found 
along the reaches of the lower river, being high enough 
for safety, and flat on top. The first white man known 
to have visited the actual site of Memphis after De 
Soto, was De Bienville, the French Governor of Louisi- 
ana, who came in 1739. De Bienville found the Chick- 

519 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

asaw village where De Soto had found it two centuries 
earlier; but whereas De Soto managed to avoid battle 
wath the inhabitants of this particular village, De Bien- 
ville came to attack them. He fought them near their 
village, was defeated, and retired to Mobile. 

Thus this part of the United States belonged first to 
Spain, and then to France; but in 1762 France ceded 
it back to Spain, and in the year following, Spain and 
France together ceded their territory in the eastern part 
of the continent to England. The next change came 
with the Revolution, when the United States came into 
being. The Spanish were, however, still in possession of 
the vast territory of Louisiana, to the west of the Missis- 
sippi. In 1795, Gayoso, Spanish Governor of Louis- 
iana, came across and built a fort on the east side of the 
river, but was presently ousted by the United States. 
In 1820, as has been said, the settlement of Memphis had 
begun, one of the early proprietors having been Andrew 
Jackson. Some of the first settlers wished to name the 
place Jackson, in honor of the general, but Jackson him- 
self, it is said, decided on the name Memphis, because 
the position of the town suggested that of ancient 
Memphis, on the Nile. 

In 1857 Memphis got her first railroad — the Memphis 
& Charleston — connecting her with Charleston, South 
Carolina. About the time the road was completed there 
were severe financial panics which held the city back; 
also there was trouble, as in so many other river towns, 
with hordes of gamblers and desperadoes. Judge J. P. 

520 



s. 






.^y • 



X- 














Citizens go at midday to the sciuare where they buy popcorn for the squirrels 
and pigeons — Alemphis 



WHAT MEMPHIS HAS ENDURED 

Young, in his "History of Memphis,'' tells of an inter- 
esting episode of those times. There were two profes- 
sional gamblers, father and son, of the name of Able. 
The father shot a man in a saloon brawl, and soon after, 
the son committed a similar crime of violence. A great 
mob started to take the younger Able out of jail and 
lynch him, but one firm citizen, addressing them from the 
balcony of a hotel, persuaded them to desist. Next day, 
however, there was a mass meeting to discuss the case 
of Able. At this meeting the hotheads prevailed, and 
Able was taken from the jail by a mob of three thou- 
sand men. When the noose was around his neck, and 
he and his mother and sister were pleading that his life 
be spared, the same man who had previously prevented 
mob action, stepped boldly up, cut the rope from Abel's 
neck, and assisted him to fly, standing between him and 
the mob, fighting the mob off, and finally getting Able 
back into the jail. When the mob stormed the jail, 
furious at having been circumvented by a single man, 
the same powerful figure appeared at the jail door with 
a pistol, and, incredible though it seems, actually held 
the mob at bay until it finally dispersed. This man was 
Nathan Bedford Forrest, later the brilliant Confederate 
cavalry leader. Forrest and his wife are buried in 
Memphis, in a square called Forrest Park, under a fine 
equestrian monument, by C. H. Niehaus. 

Before the war Forrest was a member of the slave- 
dealing firm of Forrest & Maples, of Memphis. Sub- 
joined is a photographic repreduction of an advertise- 

321 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

ment of this firm, which appeared in the Memphis City 
Directory for 1855-6. 

CITY DIRECTOBT. 261 

rOREEST& MAPLES. 

SLMI DEALERS, 

Between Second and TliirJ, 

Have constantly on hand the best selected as- 
sortment of 



at their Negro Marfc, to be found in the city. 
They are daily receiving from Virginia, Ken- 
tucky and Missouri, fresh suppUes of likely 
Young Negroes. 

Negroes Sold on Commission^ 

and the highest market price always paid for 
good stock. Their Jail is capable of contain- 
ing Three Hundred, and for comfort, neatness 
and safety, is the best arranged of any in the 
Union. Persons wishing to purchase, are invi- 
ted to examine their stock before purchasing 
elsewhere. 

They have on hand at present, Fifty likely 
young Negroes, comprising Field hands, Me- 
chanics, House and Body Servants, &c. 

When the Civil War loomed close, sentiment in Mem- 
phis was divided, but at a call for troops for the Union, 

522 



WHAT MEMPHIS HAS ENDURED 

the State of Tennessee balked, and soon after it seceded 
from the Union and joined the Confederacy. Many 
people believed, at that time, that if the entire South 
united, the North would not dare fight. When the war 
came, however, Memphis knew where she stood; it is 
said that no city of the same size (22,600) furnished so 
many men to the Confederate armies. In 1862, when 
the Union forces got control of the river to the north 
and the south of the city, it became evident that Mem- 
phis was likely to be taken. A fleet of Union gunboats 
came down and defeated the Confederate fleet in the 
river before the city, while the populace lined the banks 
and looked on. The city, being without military pro- 
tection, then surrendered, and was occupied by troops 
under Sherman. Nor, with the exception of one period 
of a few hours' duration, did it ever again come under 
Confederate control. That was when Forrest made his 
famous raid in 1864, an event which exhibited not only 
the dash and hardihood of that intrepid leader, but also 
his strategy and his sardonic humor. 

General A. J. Smith, with 13,000 Union soldiers was 
marching on the great grain district of central Missis- 
sippi, and was forcing Forrest, who had but 3,500 men, 
to the southward. Unable to meet Smith's force on 
anything like equal terms, Forrest conceived the idea 
of making a "run around the end" and striking at Mem- 
phis, which was Smith's base. Taking 1,500 picked 
men and horses, he executed a flanking movement over 
night, and before Smith knew he was gone, came career- 

523 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

ing into Memphis at dawn at the head of 500 galloping, 
yelling men — many of them Memphis boys. There 
were some 7,000 Union troops in and about Memphis at 
this time, but they were surprised out of their slumbers, 
and made no effective resistance. The only part of For- 
rest's plan which miscarried was his scheme to capture 
three leading Union officers, who were then stationed 
in Memphis: Generals C. C. Washburn, S. A. Hurlbut 
and R. P. Buckland. General Hurlbut's escape oc- 
curred by reason of the fact that instead of having 
passed the night at the old Gayoso Hotel, where he made 
his headquarters, he happened to be visiting a brother 
officer, elsewhere. General Washburn was warned by 
a courier and made his escape in his nightclothes and 
bare feet from the residence he occupied as headquarters, 
running down alleys to the river, and thence along 
under the bluff to the Union fortifications. Forrest's 
men found the general's papers, uniform, hat, boots 
and sword in his bedroom, and also found there Mrs. 
Washburn. The only things they failed to find were 
the general's nightshirt and the general himself, who 
was inside it. General Buckland also avoided capture 
by the narrowest margin. The soldiers first went to the 
wrong house to look for him. That gave him time to 
escape. 

It is recorded that, later in the day, rmder a flag of 
truce, Forrest sent General Washburn his sword and 
clothing with a humorous message, informing him, at 
the same time, that he had 600 Federal prisoners with- 

524 



WHAT MEMPHIS HAS ENDURED 

out shoes or clothing, and that he would like supplies 
for them. The supplies, we are told, were promptly 
forthcoming. 

Forrest waited until he was sure that news of the 
raid had been telegraphed to General Smith in the field. 
Then he cut the wires. Smith immediately came back 
toward Memphis with his army, which was what For- 
rest desired him to do. The Confederates then retired 
from the immediate vicinity of the city. 

Judge Young, in his history, reports that when Gen- 
eral Hurlbut heard of the raid he exclaimed, "There it 
goes again! They superseded me with Washburn be- 
cause I could not keep Forrest out of West Tennessee, 
and Washburn cannot keep him out of his own bed- 
room !" 

After the War there was corruption and carpet-bag 
rule in Memphis, and Forrest was again to the fore, 
becoming "Grand Wizard" of the famous Ku Klux 
Klan, the mysterious secret organization designed to in- 
timidate Scalawags, Carpet-baggers and negroes, whose 
arrogance had become intolerable. General George W. 
Gordon prepared the oath and ritual for the Klan, which 
was founded in the town of Pulaski, Giles County, Ten- 
nessee. General Forrest took the oath in 1866, in Room 
10 of the old Maxwell House, at Nashville. 

It is mv belief that the Ku Klux Klan has been a srood 
deal maligned. Many of its members w^ere men of high 
type. I have been told, for instance, that one southern 

5-5 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

gentleman who has since been in the cabinet of a Presi- 
dent of the United States, was active in the Ku Klux. 
I withhold his name because the purposes of the Ku 
Klux Klan, and the urgent need which called it into be- 
ing, are not yet fully understood in the North, and for 
the further reason that depredations committed by other 
bodies were frequently charged to the Ku Klux, giving 
it a bad name. So far as I can discover the Ku Klux 
endeavored to avoid violence where it could be avoided. 
Its aim seems to have been to frighten negroes and bad 
whites into behaving themselves or going away ; though 
sometimes, of course, bad characters had to be killed. 
It must be remembered that the ballot was denied 
former Confederate soldiers for quite a period after the 
War, that they were not allowed to possess firearms, 
and that, at the same time, negro troops were quartered 
in the South. In many parts of the South the govern- 
ment and the courts were in the hands of third-rate 
Northerners (carpet-baggers) who had come down to 
dominate the defeated section, and who used the Scala- 
wags (disloyal southern whites) and negroes for their 
own purposes. Obviously this was outrageous, and 
equally obviously, a proud people, even though defeated, 
could not endure it. The service performed by the Ku 
Klux Klan seems to have been comparable with that 
rendered by the Vigilantes of early western days. 
Something had to be done and the Klan did it. 

In 1869 General Forrest ordered the Klan to disband, 
which it did ; but owing to the fact that it was a secret 

526 



WHAT MEMPHIS HAS ENDURED 

organization, and that disguises had been used, it was an 
easy matter for mobs, not actually associated with the 
Ku Klux, to assume its costume and commit outrages in 
its name. 

In writing of Raleigh I referred to the post-bellum 
activities of the Confederate cruiser Shenandoah. Cap- 
tain Dabney M. Scales, a distinguished citizen of Mem- 
phis, was on the Shenandoah. Born in Orange County, 
Virginia, in 1842, Captain Scales was appointed to the 
Naval Academy by L. Q. C. Lamar. He was a class- 
mate of Captain Clark, later of the Oregon. When the 
war broke out, young Scales was in his second year at 
the Academy, but like most of the other southern cadets 
he resigned and offered his services to the South. W hen 
commissioned he was the youngest naval officer in the 
Confederate service. Eight months after the War was 
over, the Shenandoah was still crusing in the South 
Seas, looking for Federal merchantmen. In January 
1866, somewhere south of Australia, she overhauled the 
British bark Baracoiita, taking her for a Yankee man- 
o'-war flying the British flag as a ruse. Young Scales 
was sent in command of a boarding party, and was in- 
formed by the skipper of the Baracouta that the Civil 
War had terminated months and months ago. The 
Shenandoah then made for Liverpool. In the mean- 
time a Federal court had ruled that her officers were 
guilty of piracy — a hanging offense. Naturally, they 
did not dare return to the LTnited States. Young Scales 

527 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

went to Mexico and remained there two years before 
coming- home. When the Spanish War came, Captain 
Scales volunteered and was made navigating officer of 
naval vessel. At the time of our visit he was a practis- 
ing lawyer in Memphis, and was in command of Com- 
pany A of the Uniform Confederate Veterans, a body 
of old heroes who go out every now and then and win 
the first prize for the best drilled organization operating 
Hardee's tactics. 

Another distinguished citizen of Memphis w^ho has 
lively recollections of the Civil War, is the Right Rever- 
end Thomas F. Gailor, Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee. 
Bishop Gailor, who succeeded the famous Bishop Quin- 
tard, is my ideal of everything an Episcopal bishop — 
or I might even say a Church of England bishop — ought 
to be. The Episcopal Church seems to me to have about 
it more ''style" than most other churches, and an Episco- 
pal bishop ought not to look the ascetic. He ought to 
be well filled out, well dressed, well fed. He ought to 
have a distinguished appearance, a ruddy complexion, 
a good voice, and a lot of what we call ''humanness" — 
including humor. All these qualities Bishop Gailor has. 

In the bishop's study, in Memphis, hangs the sword 
of his father. Major Frank M. Gailor, who com- 
manded the 33rd Mississippi Regiment. Major Gailor 
was killed while giving a drink of water to a wounded 
brother officer, and that officer, though dying, directed 
a soldier to take the Major's sword and see that it 
reached Mrs. Gailor, in Memphis, within the Union 

528 



WHAT MEMPHIS HAS ENDURED 

lines. A young woman, a Confederate spy, took the 
sword, and wearing it next her body, brought it through 
to Mrs. Gailor. Somehow or other it became known 
that the widow had her husband's sword, and as the pos- 
session of arms was prohibited to citizens, a corporal 
and guard were sent to the house to search for it. They 
found it between the mattresses of Mrs. Gailor's bed, 
and confiscated it. Mrs. Gailor then went with another 
lady to see General Washburn. Her friend started a 
long harangue upon the injustice which had been done, 
but Mrs. Gailor, seeing that the General was becoming 
impatient, broke in saying: "General, soldiers came to 
my house and took away my dead husband's sword. I 
can't use it, nor can my little son. I want it back. You 
would want your boy to have your sword, would n't 
you?" 

"Of course I would!" cried Washburn. "Thank 
God for a woman who can say what she has to say, and 
be done with it!" 

The sword was returned. 

In the Spring of 1863, when Bishop Gailor was a 
child of about seven years, he accompanied his mother 
on a journey by wagon from Memphis to Jackson, Mis- 
sissippi. The only other member of the party was a 
lady who had driven in the same wagon from Jackson 
to Kentucky, to get the body of her brother, a Confeder- 
ate soldier who had been killed there. The coffin con- 
taining the remains was carried in the wagon. When 
it was known in Memphis that Mrs. Gailor was going 

529 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

through the Hnes, a great many people came to her with 
letters which they wished to send to friends. Mrs. 
Gailor sewed many of the letters into the clothing of the 
little boy. ("I remember it well," said the bishop. "I 
felt like a mummy.") Also one of Forrest's spies came 
with important papers, asking if she would undertake 
to deliver them. Only by very clever manipulation did 
Mrs. Gailor get the papers through, for everything was 
carefully searched. After they had passed out of the 
northern lines they met one of Forrest's pickets. Mrs. 
Gailor told him that she had papers for the general, and 
before long Forrest rode up with his staff and received 
them. Then the two women and the little boy, with 
their tragic burden in the wagon, drove along on their 
two-hundred mile journey. And later, when Jackson 
was bombarded, they were there. 

Before the war Major Gailor had been editor of the 
Memphis ''Avalanche," a paper which was suppressed 
when the Union troops took the town. After the War 
the "Avalanche" was started up again, and had a stormy 
time of it, because it criticized a Carpet-bag judge who 
had come to Memphis. In 1889 the "Avalanche" was 
consolidated with the "Appeal," another famous ante- 
bellum journal, surviving to-day in the "Commercial- 
Appeal," a strong newspaper, edited by one of the ablest 
journalists in the South, Mr. C. P. J. Mooney. 

When Memphis was captured the "Appeal" would 
have been suppressed, as the "Avalanche" was, had it 
been there. But when it became evident that Memphis 

530 



WHAT MEMPHIS HAS ENDURED 

would fall, Mr. S. C. Toof (later a well-known book 
publisher) who was then connected with the "Appeal," 
packed up the press and other equipment and shipped 
them to Grenada, Mississippi, where Mr. B. F. Dill, 
editor of the paper, continued to bring it out. When 
Grenada was threatened, a few months later, Mr. Dill 
moved with his newspaper equipment to Birmingham, 
where for a second time he resumed publication. His 
next move was to Atlanta. There, when he could not 
get news-print, he used wallpaper, or any sort of paper 
he could lay his hands on. When Sherman took At- 
lanta the ''Appeal" moved again, this time to Columbus, 
Georgia, where, at last, it was captured, and its press 
destroyed. Wherever it went it remained the "Mem- 
phis Daily Appeal," with correspondents in all southern 
armies. No wonder a paper with such vitality as that, 
has survived and become great ! 

Poor Memphis ! After the War she had Reconstruc- 
tion to contend with; after Reconstruction, financial dif- 
ficulties; after that, pestilence. In 1873, when the pop- 
ulation of the city was about 40,000, and there had been 
a long period of hard times, yellow fever broke out. 
The condition of the city was exceedingly unsanitary, 
and after the pestilence had passed, was allowed to re- 
main so, though at that time the origin of yellow fever 
was, of course, not known, and it was assumed that the 
disease resulted from lack of proper sanitation. 

In 1878 there was another yellow fever epidemic. 
The first case developed August 2, but the news was 

531 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

suppressed until the middle of the month, by which time 
a number of cases had come down. The day after the 
news became known 22 new cases were reported. Ter- 
ror spread through the town. Hordes of people tried 
to flee at once. Families left their houses with the doors 
wide open and silver stading on the sideboards. People 
flocked to the trains ; when they could not get seats they 
stood in the aisles or clambered onto the roofs of the 
cars; if they could not get in at car doors they climbed 
in through the windows, and sometimes, when the fa- 
ther of a family was refused admittance to a crowded 
car, he would force a way in for his wife and children 
at the pistol's point. 

In the first week of the panic there were 1,500 cases, 
with an average of ten deaths daily; in the next week, 
3,000 cases with fifty deaths daily, and so on into Sep- 
tember during which month there was an average of 
8,000 to 10,000 cases with about two hundred deaths a 
day. 

Not every one fled, however. Leading citizens re- 
mained, forming a relief committee, and some brave 
helpers came from outside. Thus the sick and needy 
were attended to, though of course many of the volun- 
teers contracted the disease and perished. 

Added to the epidemic there was, as so often happens 
in such circumstances, an outbreak of thievery and other 
crime, which had to be put down. It is related that in 
the height of the epidemic hardly any one was seen upon 
the streets save an occasional nurse, doctor, or other 

532 



WHAT MEMPHIS HAS ENDURED 

member of the relief committee; household pets starved 
to death or fled the city; among the newspapers the 
staffs were so reduced that only two or three men were 
left in each office, and in the case of the "Appeal," but 
one, that one Colonel J. M. Keating, the proprietor, who 
stuck to Memphis and for a time wrote, set up and 
printed the paper without assistance, feeling that ref- 
ugees must have news from the city. 

The next year the epidemic came again, but in less 
violent form, there being, this time, but 2,000 cases. 
However the effect was cumulative. Memphis dropped 
from a city of nearly 50,000 to one of 20,000 and the 
reputation of the place was such that a bill was pro- 
posed in Congress to purchase the ground on which the 
city stood and utterly destroy it as unfit for human 
habitation. 

Stricken as she was, however, Memphis "came back." 
A great campaign for sanitation was begun ; city sewage- 
disposal was installed, and after a few years, artesian 
wells were bored for a new water supply. And though, 
as we now know, yellow fever does not come from the 
same sources as typhoid, nevertheless the new sanitary 
measures did greatly reduce the city's death rate. 

Memphis, like all other cities, has her troubles now 
and then, but since the great pestilence there has never 
been a real disaster. The city has grown and thriven. 
Indeed, she had become so used to growing fast that 
when, in 19 10, the Federal census gave her but 131,000, 
she indignantly demanded a recount, for she had been 

533 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

talking to herself, and had convinced herself that she had 
a great many more than that number of inhabitants. 
However, the census was taken again, and the first count 
proved accurate. 



534 



CHAPTER L 
MODERN MEMPHIS 

TO be charmed by the social side of a city, yet to 
find Httle to admire in its physical aspect, is like 
knowing a brilliant and beautiful woman whose 
housekeeping is not of the neatest. H one were com- 
pelled to discuss such a woman, and wished to do so sym- 
pathetically but with truth, one might avoid brutal com- 
ment on the condition of her rooms by likening them to 
other rooms elsewhere: rooms which one knew to be 
untidy, but which the innocent listener might not under- 
stand to be so. By this device one may even appear to 
pay a compliment, while, in reality, indicating the grim 
truth. In such a case, I, for example, might say that 
this supposititious lady's rooms reminded me of those 
I occupied on the second floor of the famous restaurant 
called Antoine's, in New Orleans; whereupon the 
reader, knowing the high reputation of Antoine's cui- 
sine, and never having seen the apartments to which I 
refer, might assume an implication very favorable. 

Let me say, then, that Memphis reminds me of St. 
Louis. Like St. Louis, Memphis has charming society. 
Like St. Louis she has pretty girls. Like St. Louis she 
is hospitable. And without particularizing too much, I 

535 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

may say that her streets remind me of St. Louis streets, 
that many of her houses remind me of St. Louis houses, 
and that her levee, with its cobbled surface sloping- 
down to the yellow, muddy Mississippi, the bridges in 
the distance, the strange looking river steamers load- 
ing and unloading below, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, is 
much like the St. Louis levee. So, if the reader hap- 
pens to be unfamiliar with the physical appearance of 
St. Louis, he may, at all events, perceive that I have 
likened Memphis to a much larger city — thus, (it seems 
fair to suppose) paying Memphis a handsome tribute. 

Memphis has a definite self-given advantage over St. 
Louis in possessing a pretty little park at the heart of 
the city, overlooking the river; also she has the ad- 
vantage of lying to the east of the great stream, in- 
stead of to the west, so that, in late afternoon, when the 
sun splashes down into the mysterious deserted reaches 
of the Arkansas flats, across the way, sending splatter- 
ings of furious color across the sky, one may seat one- 
self on a bench in the park and witness a stupendous 
natural masterpiece. A sunset over the sea can be no 
more wonderful than a sunset over this terrible, beau- 
tiful, inspiring, enigmatic, domineering flood. Or one 
may see the sunset from the readingroom of the Cos- 
sitt Library, with its fine bay window commanding the 
river almost as though it were the window of a pilot- 
house. 

The Cossitt Library is only one of several free li- 
braries in the city. There is, for example, a free library 

536 




Hanging in the air above the middle of the stream 



MODERN MEMPHIS 

in connection with the Goodwyn Institute, an estab- 
lishment having an endowment of half a million dol- 
lars, left to Memphis by the late William A. Goodwyn. 
The Goodwyn Institute provides courses of free lec- 
tures, by well-known persons, on a great variety of 
subjects. The library is designed to add to the educa- 
tional work. Books are not, however, loaned, as they 
are from the Cossitt Library, an institution to which I 
found myself returning more than once; now for a 
book, now to look at the interesting collection of mound- 
builder relics contained in an upper room, now merely 
because it is a place of such reposeful hospitality that 
I liked to make excuses to go back. 

The library, a romanesque building of Michigan red 
sandstone, is by a southern architect, but is in the style 
of Richardson, and is one of the few buildings in that 
style which I have ever liked. It was given to Memphis 
as a memorial to Frederick H. Cossitt, by his three 
daughters, Mrs. A. D. Juilliard, Mrs. Thomas Stokes, 
and Mrs. George E. Dodge, all of New York. Mr. 
Cossitt was born in Granby, Connecticut, but as a young 
man moved South and in 1842 adopted Memphis as 
his home, residing there until 1861. At the outbreak 
of the Civil War he made an amicable division of his 
business with his partner, and removed to New York, 
where he resided until the time of his death. Finding 
among his papers a memorandum indicating that he had 
intended to endow a library in Memphis, his daughters 
carried out his wish. 

537 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Having already spoken of a number of Memphis' 
interesting citizens, I find myself left with an ill-as- 
sorted trio of names yet to be mentioned, because, differ- 
ent as they are, each of the three supplies a definite 
part of the character of the city. First, then, Mem- 
phis has the honor of possessing what not many of our 
cities possess : a man who stands high among the world's 
artist-bookbinders. This gentleman is Mr. Otto Zahn, 
executive head of the publishing house of S. C. Toof & 
Co. Mr. Zahn himself has done some famous bind- 
ings, and books bound by him are to be found in some 
of the finest private libraries in the land. Until a few 
years he conducted an art-bindery in connection with 
the Toof company's business, but it was unprofitable 
and finally had to be given up. 

Second, to descend to a more popular form of art, 
but one from which the revenue is far more certain, 
Memphis has, in W. C. Handy, a negro ragtime com- 
poser whose dance tunes are widely known. Among 
his compositions may be mentioned the "Memphis 
Blues," the "St. Louis Blues," "Mr. Crump," and "Joe 
Turner." "Mr. Crump" is named in honor of a former 
mayor of Memphis who was ousted for refusing to 
enforce the prohibition law ; "Joe Turner" is the name 
of a negro pianist who plays for Memphis to dance — 
as Handy also does. Most of Handy's tunes are negro 
"rags" in fox-trot time, and they are so effective that 
Memphis dances them generally in preference to the one 
step. 

538 



MODERN MEMPHIS 

My third celebrity is of a more astounding- type. 
While in Memphis I called aboard the river steamer 
Grand, and had a talk with Mrs. Nettie Johnson, who is 
captain of that craft. Some one told me that Mrs. 
Johnson was the only woman steamboat captain in the 
world, but she informed me that at Helena, Arkansas, 
there lives another Mrs. Johnson — no relative of hers — 
who follows the same calling. 

The steamer Grand is almost entirely a Johnson fam- 
ily affair. Mrs. Johnson is captain; her husband, I. S. 
Johnson is pilot (though Mrs. Johnson has, in addition 
to her master's license, a pilot's license, and often takes 
the wheel) ; her elder son, Emery, is clerk; Emery's wife 
is assistant clerk, while Arthur, the captain's younger 
son, is engineer. Russell Johnson, Mrs. Johnson's 
grandson, is the only member of the family I saw aboard 
the boat who does not take part in running it. Russell 
was five years old when T met him, but that was nearly a 
year ago, and by now he is probably chief steward, boat- 
swain, or ship's carpenter. 

The regular route of the Grand is from Memphis to 
Mhoon's Landing, on the Arkansas River, a round trip 
of 1 20 miles, with thirty landings. 

I asked Mrs. Johnson if she had ever been ship- 
wrecked. Indeed she had ! Her former ship, the Net- 
tie Johnson, struck thin ice one night in the Arkansas 
River and went down. 

"What did you do?" I asked. 

'T reached after an iron ring," she replied, ''and dumb 

539 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

on up into the rigging. She went down about four- 
thirty A.M. and we stayed on her till daylight; then 
we all swum ashore. I tell you it was cold! There 
was icicles on my dress; my son Emery put his arms 
around me to keep me warm, and his clothes froze onto 
mine." 

"How long a swim was it to shore?" I asked. 

"Oh," put in her husband, "it did n't amount to noth- 
ing. She was only swimming about two minutes." 

This statement, however, was repudiated by the cap- 
tain. "Two minutes, my foot!" she flung back at her 
spouse. "It was more than that, all right!" 

Mrs. Johnson has done flood rescue work for the Gov- 
ernment, with the Grand. In the spring previous to 
our visit she rescued sixty families from one plantation, 
besides towing barge-loads of provisions to various 
points on the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers. 

Captaining and piloting a river boat are clearly good 
for the health. Mrs. Johnson looks too young to be a 
grandmother. Her skin is clear, her cheeks are rosy, 
her brown eyes flash and twinkle, her voice, somewhat 
hoarse from shouting commands, is deep and strong, and 
her laugh is like the hearty laugh of a big man. 

"Are you a suftVagist?" I asked her. 

"Not on your life!" was her reply. 

"Now, what do you want to talk like that for?" ob- 
jected her husband. "You know women ought to be 
allowed to vote." 

"I don't think so," she returned firmly. 

540 



MODERN MEMPHIS 

At that her daughter-in-law, the assistant clerk of the 
Grand, took up the cudgels. 

"Of course they ought to vote!" she insisted. "You 
know you can do just as good as a man can do !" 

"No," asseverated Captain Nettie. "Women ought 
to stay home and tend to their families." 

"As you do?" I suggested, mischievously. 

"That's all right!" she flung back. "I stayed home 
and raised my family until it was big enough to do its 
own navigating. Then I started in steamboating. I 
had to have something to do." 

But the daughter-in-law did not intend to let the 
woman suffrage issue drop. 

"Do you mean to say," she demanded of Captain 
Nettie, "that you think women have n't got as much 
sense as men?" 

"Sure I do!" the captain tossed back. "There never 
was a woman on earth that had as much sense as the 
men. Take it from me, that 's so. I know what I 'm 
talking about — and that 's more than a half of these 
other w^omen do !" 

Then, as it was about time for the Grand to cast off. 
Captain Nettie terminated the interview by blowing the 
whistle ; whereupon my companion and I went ashore. 

One of the best boats on the river is the Kafe Adams 
and one of the most delightful two-days' outings T can 
imagine would be to make the round trip with her from 
Memphis to Arkansas City. But if I were seeking rest 
I should not take the trip at the time when it is taken 

541 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

by a score or more of Memphis young men and women, 
who, with their chaperones, and with Handy to play 
their dance-music, make the Kate Adams an extremely 
lively craft on one round trip each year. 

Apropos of Arkansas, I am reminded that Memphis 
is not only the metropolis of Tennessee, but is the big 
city of Arkansas and Mississippi, as well. The Pea- 
body Hotel in Memphis, a somewhat old-fashioned hos- 
telry, is a sort of Arkansas political headquarters, and 
is sometimes humorously referred to as "Peabody town- 
ship, Arkansas." It is also used to a considerable ex- 
tent by Mississippi politicians, as well as by the local 
breed. The Peabody grill has a considerable reputa- 
tion for good cookery, and the Peabody bar, though it 
still looks like a bar, serves only soft drinks, which are 
dispensed by female "bartenders." The Gayoso hotel, 
named for the Spanish governor who intruded upon 
Memphis territory for a time, stands where stood the 
old Gayoso, which figured in Forrest's raid. The Gay- 
oso made me think a little of the old Victoria, in New 
York, torn down some years ago. The newest hotel 
in town, at the time of our visit, was the Chicsa, an es- 
tablishment having a large and rather flamboyant office, 
and considerably used, we were told, as a place for con- 
ventions. If I were to go again to Memphis I should 
have a room at the Gayoso and go to the Peabody for 
meals. 

The axis of the earth, which Oliver Wendell Holmes 
declared, ''sticks out visibly through the center of each 

542 



MODERN MEMPHIS 

and every town or city," sticks out in Memphis at Court 
Square, which the good red Baedeker dismisses briefly 
with the remark that it ''contains a bust of General An- 
drew Jackson and innumerable squirrels. This is not 
meant to indicate that the squirrels are a part of the 
1)ust of Jackson. The two are separate and distinct. 
So are the pigeons which alight on friendly hands and 
shoulders as do other confident pigeons on Boston Com- 
mon, and in the Piazza San Marco, in Venice. 

I am always disposed to like the people of a city in 
which pigeons and squirrels are tame. Every day, at 
noon, an old policeman, a former Confederate soldier I 
believe he is, comes into the square with a basket of corn. 
When he arrives all the pigeons see him and rush to- 
ward him in a great flapping cloud, brushing past your 
face if you happen to be walking across the square at 
the time. Nor is he the only one to feed them. Num- 
bers of citizens go at midday to the square, where they 
buy popcorn and peanuts for the squirrels and pigeons 
— which, by the way, are all members of old Memphis 
families, being descendants of other squirrels and pig- 
eons which lived in this same place before the Civil War. 
One might suppose that the pigeons, being able to fly up 
to the seventeenth floor windowsills of the Merchants' 
Exchange Building, where men of the grain and hay 
bureau of the exchange are in the habit of leaving corn 
for them, would prosper more than the squirrels, but 
that is not the case for — and I regret to have to report 
such immorality — the squirrels are in the habit of add- 

543 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

ing to the stores of peanuts which are thrown to them, 
by thievery. Like rascally urchins they will watch the 
peanut venders, and when their backs are turned, will 
make swift dashes at the peanut stands, seizing nuts 
and scampering away again. Sometimes the venders 
detect them, and give chase for a few steps, but that is 
dangerous, for the minute the vender goes after one 
squirrel, others rush up and steal more. It is saddening 
to find that even squirrels are corrupted by metropolitan 
Hfe! 

In reviewing my visit to Memphis I find myself, for 
once, kindly disposed toward a Chamber of Commerce 
and Business Men's Club. I like the Business Men's 
Club because, besides issuing pamphlets shrieking the 
glory of the city, it has found time to do things much 
more worth while — notably to bring to Memphis some of 
the great American orchestras. 

A pamphlet issued by these organizations tells me that 
Memphis is the largest cotton market in the country, the 
largest hardwood producing market, the third largest 
grocery and jobbing market. 

Cotton is, indeed, much in evidence in the city. The 
streets in some sections are full of strange little two- 
wheel drays, upon which three bales are carried, and 
which display, in combination, those three southern 
things having such perfect artistic affinity: the negro, 
the mule, and the cotton bale. The vast modern cotton 
warehouses on the outskirts of the city cover many acres 
of ground, and with their gravity system of distribution 

544 



MODERN MEMPHIS 

for cotton bales, and their hydraulic compresses in which 
the bales are squeezed to minimum size, to the accom- 
paniment of negro chants, are exceedingly interesting. 

The same pamphlet speaks also of the unusually large 
proportion of the city's area which is given over 
to parks and playgrounds, and it seems worth adding 
that though Memphis follows the general southern cus- 
tom of barring negroes — excepting, of course, nurse- 
maids in charge of children — from her parks, she has 
been so just as to provide a park for negroes only. In 
this she stands ahead of most other southern cities. 

Memphis has the only bridge crossing the Mississippi 
below the mouth of the Ohio. At the time of our visit a 
new bridge was being built very near the old one, and an 
interesting experience of our trip was our visit to this 
bridge, under the guidance of Mr. M. B. Case, a young 
engineer in charge. 

On a great undertaking, such as this one, where the 
total cost mounts into millions, the first work done is not 
on the proposed bridge itself, but on the plant and equip- 
ment to be used in construction — derricks, barges, con- 
crete-mixers, air compressors for the caissons, small 
engines, dump-cars and all manner of like things: This 
preparatory work consumes some months. Caissons are 
then sunk far down beneath the river bed. Caisson 
work is dangerous, and the insurance rate on "sand 
hogs" — the men who work in the caissons — is very high. 
The scale of wages, and of time, varies in proportion to 
the risk, which is according to the depth at which work is 

545 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

being done. On this enterprise, for example, men work- 
ing from mean level to a depth of 50 feet received $3 for 
an eight-hour day. From 50 to 70 feet they worked but 
six hours and received $3.75. From 90 to 105 feet they 
worked in three shifts of one hour each, and received 
$4.25. And while they were placing concrete to seal the 
working chamber there was an additional allowance of 
fifty cents a day. 

The chief danger of caisson work is the "bends," or 
"caisson disease." In the caisson a man works under 
high air pressure. When he comes out, the pressure on 
the fluids of the body is reduced, and this sometimes 
causes the formation of a gas bubble in the vascular 
system. If this bubble reaches a nerve-center it causes 
severe pain, similar to neuralgia; if it gets to the brain 
it causes paralysis. Day after day men will go into the 
caisson and come out without trouble, but sooner or later 
from 2 to 8 per cent, of caisson workers are affected. 
Of 320 *'sand-hogs" who labored in the caissons of this 
bridge, three died of paralysis, and of course a number 
of others had slight attacks of the "bends," in one form 
or another. 

The "bridge, when we visited it, was more than half 
completed. On the Memphis side the approaches were 
almost ready, and the steel framework of the bridge 
reached from the shore across the front pier, and was 
being built out far beyond the pier, on the cantilever 
principle, hanging in the air above the middle of the 
stream. By walking out on the old bridge we could sur- 

546 



MODERN MEMPHIS 

vey the extreme end of the new one, which was being 
extended farther and farther, daily, by the addition of 
new steel sections. There were then about loo journey- 
men bridgemen on the work — these being workmen of 
the class that erects steel skyscraper frames — with some 
fifty apprentices and carpenters, and about twenty com- 
mon laborers. Bridgemen are among the highest paid 
of all workmen. In New York, at that time, their wage 
was $6 for eight hours' work. Here it was $4.50- 
Very few of the men had families with them in Mem- 
phis. They are the soldiers of fortune among wage- 
earners, a wild, reckless, fine looking lot of fellows, with 
good complexions like those of men in training, and eyes 
like the eyes of aviators. No class of men in the world, 
I suppose, have steadier nerves, think quicker, or react 
more rapidly from stimulus to action, whether through 
sight or sound. They have to be like that. For where 
other workmen pay for a mistake by loss of a job, these 
men pay with life. Yet they will tell you that their 
work is not dangerous. It is ''just as safe as any other 
kind of job" — that, although four of their number had 
already been lost from this bridge alone. One went off 
the end of the structure with a derrick, the boom of 
which he lowered before the anchor-bolts had 1)een 
placed. Two others fell. A fourth was struck by a 
falling timber. 

Once, while we w^ere watching the men scram! )ling 
about upon the steel members of the uncompleted canti- 
lever arm, one of them thought something was about to 

547 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

fall, and ran swiftly in, over a steel beam, toward the 
body of the structure; whereafter, as nothing did fall, 
he was unmercifully twitted by his fellow workers for 
having shown timidity. 

Many of the men working on this bridge had worked 
on the older structure paralleling it. This was true not 
only of the laboring men, but of the engineers. Ralph 
Modjeski, the consulting engineer at the head of the 
work (he is, by the way, a son of Madame Modjeska), 
was chief draughtsman when the earlier structure was 
designed; \V. E. Angier, assistant chief engineer in the 
present work, was a field engineer on the first bridge, and 
it is interesting to know that, in constructing the ap- 
proach to the old bridge he unearthed a Spanish halbert 
which, it is thought, may date from the time of De Soto. 
These bridge engineers and bridgebuilders move in a 
large orbit. Their last job may have been in Mexico, in 
the far West, or in India ; their next may be in France. 
Many of the men here, worked on the Blackwell's Island 
bridge, on the Quebec bridge (which fell), on the 
Thebes bridge over the Mississippi, twenty miles above 
Cairo, on the Vancouver and Portland bridges over the 
Columbia and Willamette rivers, and on the great Ore- 
gon Trunk Railway bridges. 

After standing for a time on the old bridge watching 
work on the new, and shuddering, often enough, at the 
squirrel-like way in which the men scampered about up 
there, so far above the water, we walked in and moved 
out again upon the partially completed floor of the new 

548 



MODERN MEMPHIS 

bridge. Here it was necessary to walk on railroad ties, 
with gaps, six or eight inches wide, between them. 
Even had one tried, one could hardly have managed to 
squeeze one's body through these chinks ; to fall through 
was impossible; nevertheless it gave me an uncomfort- 
able feeling in the region of the stomach to walk out 
there, seeing the river all the time between the inter- 
stices. When we had progressed for some distance we 
came to a gap where, for perhaps a yard, there were no 
ties — just open space, with the muddy water shining 
cold and cruel below. The opening was only about as 
wide as the hall of a small New York flat, and heaven 
knows that to step across such a hall is easy enough. 
But this was not so easy. When we came to the gap I 
stopped. Mr. Case, the young engineer, who loved all 
bridges with a sort of holy passion, and loved this bridge 
in particular, was talking as we went along. I liked to 
hear him talk. He had been telling us how a thing that 
is to be strong ought to look strong, too, and from that 
had got somehow to the topic of expansion and contrac- 
tion in bridges, with variations of temperature. "It 
is n't only the steel bridges that do it," he said. "Stone 
arch bridges do it, too. The crown of the arch rises and 
falls. The Greeks and Romans and Egyptians knew 
that expansion and contraction occurred. They — " 

While talking he had gone across the gap, stepping 
lightly upon a stringpiece probably a foot wide, and pro- 
ceeding over the ties. Now, however, he ceased speak- 
ing and looked back, for I was no longer beside him. 

549 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

At the gap I had stopped. I intended to step across, but 
I did not propose to do so without giving the matter the 
attention it seemed to me to deserve. 

Mr. Case did not laugh at me. He came back and 
stood on the string-piece where it crossed the opening, 
telling me to put my hand on his shoulder. But I did 
not want to do that. I wanted to cross alone — when I 
got ready. It took me perhaps two minutes to get ready. 
Then I stepped over. It was, of course, absurdly easy. 
I had known it would be. But as we walked along I 
kept thinking to myself: "I shall have to cross that 
beastly place again when we come back," and I marveled 
the more at the amazing steadiness of eye and mind and 
nerve that enables some men to go continually prancing 
about over emptiness infinitely more engulfing than that 
which had troubled and was troubling me. 

Returning I stepped across without physical hesita- 
tion. But after I had crossed I continued to hate that 
gap. I hated it as I drove back to the hotel, that after- 
noon, as I ate dinner that night, as I went to bed, and in 
my dreams I continued to cross it, and to see the river 
waiting for me, seeming to look up and leer and beckon. 
I woke up hating the gap in the bridge as much as ever ; 
I hated it down into the State of Mississippi, and over 
into Georgia; and wherever I have gone since, I have 
continued to hate it. Of course there is n't any gap there 
now. It was covered long ago. Yet for me it still ex- 
ists, like some obnoxious person who, though actually 
dead, lives on in the minds of those who knew him. 

550 



FARTHEST SOUTH 



CHAPTER LI 
BEAUTIFUL SAVANNAH 

HOW often it occurs that the great work a man set 
out originally to accomplish, is lost sight of, by 
future generations, in contemplation of other 
achievements of that man, which he himself regarded 
as of secondary importance. 

In 1733, the year in which General Oglethorpe started 
his Georgia colony, there were more than a hundred of- 
fenses for which a person might be hanged in Eng- 
land; Oglethorpe's primary idea in founding the colony 
was to provide a means of freeing debtors from prison, 
and giving them a fresh start in life; yet it is as the man 
responsible for the laying out of the beautiful city of 
Savannah, that Oglethorpe is probably most widely re- 
membered to-day. 

Oglethorpe v/as a first-rate soldier. He defeated a 
superior Spanish force from Florida, and successfully 
resisted attacks from the Indians. Also, he was a man 
whose ethical sense was in advance of his period. He 
did not permit slavery in Georgia, and it was not adopted 
there until he went back to England. In planning 
Savannah he was assisted by a Charleston engineer 
named Bull, for whom the chief street of Savannah is 

553 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

named. The place is laid out very simply; it has rect- 
angular blocks and wide roads, with small parks, or 
squares, at regular intervals. There are some two 
dozen of these small parks, aside from one or two larger 
parks, a parade ground, and numerous boulevards with 
double roadways and parked centers, and the abundance 
of semi-tropical foliage and of airy spaces, in Savannah, 
gives the city its most distinctive and charming quality 
— the quality which differentiates it from all other 
American cities. Originally these parks were used as 
market-places and rallying points in case of Indian at- 
tack ; now they serve the equally utilitarian purposes of 
this age, having become charming public gardens and 
playgrounds. One of them — not the most important 
one — is named Oglethorpe Square; but the monument 
to Oglethorpe is placed elsewhere. 

Madison Square, Savannah, is relatively about as 
important as Madison Square, New York, and though 
smaller than the latter, is much prettier. It contains 
a monument to Sergeant Jasper, the Revolutionary hero 
who, when the flag was shot down from Fort Moultrie, 
off Charleston, by the British, flung it to the breeze 
again, under fire. Jasper was later killed with the flag 
in his arms, in the French-American attempt to take 
Savannah from the British. Monterey Square has a 
statue of Count Pulaski, who also fell at the siege of 
Savannah. Another Revolutionary hero remembered 
with a monument is General Nathanael Greene who, 
though born in Rhode Island, moved after the war to 

554 



BEAUTIFUL SAVANNAH 

Georgia where, in recognition of his services, he was 
given an estate not far from Savannah. "Mad" 
Anthony Wayne, a Pennsylvanian by birth, also ac- 
cepted an estate in Georgia and resided there after the 
Revolution. 

An interesting story attaches to Greene's settlement 
in Georgia. The estate given to him was that known 
as Mulberry Grove, above the city, on the Savannah 
River. The property had previously belonged to Lieu- 
tenant-governor John Graham, but was confiscated be- 
cause Graham was a loyalist. Along with the property, 
Greene apparently took over the Graham vault in Colo- 
nial Cemetery — now a city park, and a very interesting 
one because of the old tombs and gravestones — and there 
he was himself buried. After a while people forgot 
where Greene's remains lay, and later, when it was 
decided to erect a monument to his memory in Johnson 
Square, they could n't find any Greene to put under it. 
However, they went ahead and made the monument, 
and Lafayette laid the cornerstone, when he visited 
Savannah in March, 1825. Greene's remains were lost 
for 114 years. They did not come to light until 1902, 
when some one thought of opening the Graham vault. 
Thereupon they were removed and reinterred in their 
proper resting place beneath the monument which had so 
long awaited them. That monument, by the way, was 
not erected by Savannah people, or even by Southerners, 
but was paid for by the legislature of the general's na- 
tive Rhode Island. When the remains were discovered, 

555 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Rhode Island asked for them, but Savannah, which had 
lost them, also wanted them. The matter was settled by 
a vote of Greene's known descendants, who decided al- 
most unanimously to leave his remains in Savannah. 

The foundation of the general's former home at Mul- 
berry Grove may still be seen. It v/as in this house that 
Eli Whitney invented the cotton-gin. Whitney was a 
tutor in the Greene family after the general's death, 
and it was at the suggestion of Mrs. Greene that he 
started to try and make "a machine to pick the seed out 
of cotton." It is said that Whitney's first machine 
would do, in five hours, work which, if done by hand, 
would take one man two years. This was, of course, an 
epoch-making invention and caused enormous commer- 
cial growth in the South, where cotton-gins are as com- 
mon things as restaurants in the city of New York. 
Which reminds me of a story. 

A northern man was visiting Mr. W. D. Pender, at 
Tarboro, North Carolina. On the day of the guest's 
arrival Mr. Pender spoke to his cook, a negro woman of 
the old order, telling her to hurry up the dinner, because 
he wished to take his friend down to see the cotton-gin. 
"You know," he explained, "this gentleman has never 
seen a cotton-gin." 

The cook looked at him in amazement. 

"Lor'! Mistuh Penduh," she exclaimed. "An' dat 
man look like he was edjacated!" 

Another item in Savannah history is that John Wes- 

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BEAUTIFUL SAVANNAH 

ley came over about the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury to convert the Indians to Christianity. It was 
not until after this attempt, when he returned to 
England, that he began the great religious movement 
which led to the founding of the Methodist Church. 
George Whitfield also preached in Savannah. Evi- 
dently Wesley did not get very far with the savages 
who, it may be imagined, were more responsive to the 
kind of "conversion" attempted in South Carolina, by a 
French dancing-master, who went out from Charleston 
in the early days and taught them the steps of the stately 
minuet. 

Another great event in Savannah history was the de- 
parture from that port, in 1 819, of the City of Savannah, 
the first steamship to cross the Atlantic. If I may 
make a suggestion to the city, it is that the centennial 
of this event be celebrated, and that a memorial be 
erected. Inspiration for such a memorial might per- 
haps be found in the simple and charming monument, 
crowned by a galleon in bronze, which has been erected 
in San Francisco, in memory of Robert Louis Steven- 
son. A ship in bronze can be a glorious thing — which 
is more than can be said of a bronze statesman in modern 
pantaloons. 

More lately Savannah initiated another world-im- 
provement: she was the first city to abolish horses en- 
tirely from her fire department, replacing them with 
automobile engines, hook-and-ladders, and hose-carts. 

557 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

That is in line with what one would expect of Savannah, 
for she is not only a progressive city, but is a great 
automobile city, having several times been the scene of 
important international automobile road races, including 
the Grand Prize and the Vanderbilt Cup. 

Nor is there want of other history. The Savannah 
Theater, though gutted by fire and rebuilt, is the same 
theater that Joseph Jefferson owned and managed for 
a time, in the fifties ; in the house on Lafayette Square, 
now occupied by Judge W. W. Lambdin, Robert E. Lee 
once stayed, and Thackeray is said to have written there 
a part of ''The Virginians." 

A sad thing was happening in Savannah when we 
were there. The Habersham house, one of the loveliest 
old mansions of the city, was being torn down to make 
room for a municipal auditorium. 

The first Habersham in America was a Royal Gov- 
ernor of Georgia. He had three sons one of whom, 
Joseph, had, by the outbreak of the Revolution, become a 
good enough American to join a band of young patriots 
who took prisoner the British governor. Sir James 
Wright. The governor's house was situated where the 
Telfair Academy now is. He was placed under parole, 
but nevertheless fled to Bonaventure, the Tabnall estate, 
not far from the city, where he was protected by friends 
until he could escape to the British fleet, which then lay 
off Tybee Island at the mouth of the Savannah River, 
some eighteen miles below the city. This same Joseph 
Habersham, it is said, led a party which went out in 

558 



BEAUTIFUL SAVANNAH 

1775 in skiffs — called bateaux along this part of the 
coast — boarded the British ship Hmchenhroke, lying at 
anchor in the river, and captured her in a hand-to-hand 
conflict. Mr. Neyle Colquitt of Savannah, a descendant 
of the Habershams, tells me that the powder taken from 
the Hinchenbroke was used at the Battle of Bunker Hill. 
After the war, in which Joseph Habersham commanded 
a regiment of regulars, he was made Postmaster General 
of the United States. The old house itself was built by 
Archibald Bulloch, a progenitor of that Miss "Mittie" 
Bulloch who later became Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., 
mother of the President. It was designed by an Eng- 
lish architect named Jay, who did a number of the fine 
old houses of Savannah, which are almost without excep- 
tion of the Georgian period. Archibald Bulloch bought 
the lot on which he built the house from Matthew 
McAllister, great-grandfather of Ward McAllister. 
When sold by Bulloch it passed through several hands 
and finally came into the possession of Robert Haber- 
sham, a son of Joseph. 

The old house was spacious and its interiors had a 
fine formality about them. The staircase, fireplace and 
chandeliers were handsome, and there was at the rear 
a charming oval room, the heavy mahogany doors of 
which were curved to conform to the shape of the walls. 
To tear down such a house was sacrilege — also it was a 
sacrilege hard to commit, for some of the basement walls 
were fifteen feet thick, and of solid brick straight 
through. 

559 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Sherman's headquarters were on the Square, just 
south of the De Soto Hotel, in the battlemented brick 
mansion which is the residence of General Peter W. 
Meldrim, ex-president of the American Bar Associa- 
tion, and former Mayor of Savannah. 

Among other old houses characteristic of Savannah, 
are the Scarborough house, the Mackay house, the 
Thomas house in Franklin Square (also known as 
the Owens house), in which Lafayette was enter- 
tained, and the Telfair house, now the Telfair Academy. 
The Telfair and Thomas houses were built by the archi- 
tect who built the Habersham house, and it is to be 
hoped that they will never go the way of the latter 
mansion. 

In 1810, about the time these houses were built, 
Savannah had 5,000 inhabitants; by 1850 the popula- 
tion had trebled, and 1890 found it a place of more 
than 40,000. Since then the city has grown with 
wholesome rapidity, and attractive suburban districts 
have been developed. The 19 10 census gives the popula- 
tion as 65,000, but the city talks exuberantly of 90,000. 
Well, perhaps that is not an exaggerated claim. Cer- 
tainly it is a city to attract those who are free to live 
where they please. In fall, winter and spring it leaves 
little to be desired. I have been there three times, and I 
have never walked up Bull Street without looking for- 
ward to the day when I could go there, rent an old house 
full of beautiful mahogany, and pass a winter. Not 
even New Orleans made me feel like that. I feel about 

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BEAUTIFUL SAVANNAH 

New Orleans that it is a place to visit rather than to 
settle down in. I want to go back to New Orleans, but 
I do not want to stay more than a few weeks. I want 
to see some people that I know, prowl about the French 
quarter, and have Jules Alciatore turn me out a dinner ; 
then I want to go away. So, too, I want to go back to 
Atlanta — just to see some people. I want to stay there 
a week or two. Also I want to go to St. Augustine 
when cold weather comes, and bask in the warm sun, and 
breathe the soft air full of gold dust, and feel indolent 
and happy as I watch the activities about the excellent 
Ponce de Leon Hotel; but there are two cities in the 
South that I dream of going to for a quiet happy winter 
of domesticity and work, in a rented house — it must be 
the right house, too — and those cities are, first Charles- 
ton; then Savannah. 

The Telfair Academy in the old Telfair mansion was 
left, by a member of the family, to the city, to be used 
as a museum. Being somewhat skeptical about mu- 
seums in cities of the size of Savannah, not to say 
much larger cities, especially when they are art museums, 
I very nearly omitted a visit to this one. Had I done 
so I would have missed seeing not only a number of ex- 
ceedingly interesting historic treasures, but what I be- 
lieve to be the best public art collection contained in any 
southern city. 

The museum does, to be sure, contain a number of 
old "tight" paintings of the kind with which the coun- 
try was deluged at the time of the Chicago World's Fair, 

561 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

but upstairs there is a surprise in shape of an exhibition 
of modern American paintings (the best paintings be- 
ing produced in the world to-day) showing brilliant 
selection. I was utterly amazed when I found this col- 
lection. There were excellent canvases by Childe Has- 
sam, Ernest Lawson, George Bellows, and other living 
American painters whose work, while it is becoming 
more and more widely appreciated each year, is still 
beyond all but the most advanced and discriminating 
buyers of paintings. I went into ecstasies over this col- 
lection, and I "said to myself: "Away down here in Sa- 
vannah there is some one buying better paintings for a 
little museum than the heads of many of the big 
museums in the country have had sense enough or 
courage enough to buy. This man ought to be 'dis- 
covered' and taken to some big museum where his ap- 
preciation will be put to the greatest use." With that I 
rushed downstairs, sought out the curator, and asked 
who had purchased the modern American pictures. 
And then my bubble was pricked, for who had they had, 
down there, buying their pictures for them, but Gari 
Melchers ! Naturally the pictures were good ! 

In one room of the building, on the ground floor, is 
a collection of fine old furniture, etc., which belonged 
to the Telfair family, including two beautiful mantel- 
pieces of ^lack and white marble, some cabinets, and a 
very curious and fascinating extension dining-table, 
built of mahogany. The table is perfectly round, and 
the leaves, instead of being added in the middle, are 

562 



BEAUTIFUL SAVANNAH 

curved pieces, fitting around the outer edge in two se- 
ries, so that when extended to its full capacity the 
table is still round. I have never seen another such 
table. 

Also I found many interesting old books and papers 
passed down from the Telfairs. One of these was a 
ledger with records of slave sales. 

In a sale held Friday, October 14, 1774, Sir James 
Wright, the same British governor who was presently 
put to flight, purchased four men, five women, nine boys, 
and one girl, at a total cost of £820, or about $3,280. 
Sir Patrick Houston bought two women at £90, or $450. 
The whole day's sale disposed of thirty-five men, seven- 
teen women, twenty-seven boys and ten girls, at a grand 
total of £3206, or roughly between nine and ten thou- 
sand dollars. 

The Telfairs were great planters. Among the papers 
was one headed "Rules and Directions to be strictly at- 
tended to by all overseers at Thorn Island Plantation." 
This plantation was on the North Carolina side of the 
river, and was ow^ned by Alexander Telfair, a brother 
of Miss Mary Telfair who gave the Academy to the city. 
Dates which occur in the papers stamp them as having 
been issued some time prior to 1837. Here are some of 
the regulations : 

The allowance for every grown negro, let him or her 
be old and good for nothing, and every young one that 
works in the field, is a peck of corn a week and a pint of 

563 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

salt and a piece of meat not exceeding fourteen pounds 
per month. 

No negro to have more than forty lashes, no matter 
what his crime. 

The suckling children and all small ones who do not 
work in the field draw a half allowance of corn and salt. 

Any negro can have a ticket to go about the neighbor- 
hood, but cannot leave it without a pass. No strangers 
allowed to come on the place without a pass. 

The negroes to be tasked when the work allows it. I 
require a reasonable day's work well done. The task to 
be regulated by the state of the ground and the strength 
of the negro. 

All visiting between the Georgia plantation to be re- 
fused. [The Telfairs owned another plantation on the 
Georgia side of the river.] No one to get husbands or 
waves across the river. No night meeting or preaching 
allowed on the place except on Saturday or Sunday 
morning. 

If there is any fighting on the place whip all engaged 
in it, no matter what may be the cause it may be covered 
with. 

In extreme cases of sickness employ a physician. 
After a dose of castor oil is given, a dose of calomel, and 
blister applied, if no relief, then send. 

My negroes are not allowed to plant cotton for them- 
selves. Everything else they may plant. Give them 
ticket to sell what they make. 

I have no Driver (slave-driver). You are to task the 

564 



BEAUTIFaL SAVANNAH 

negroes yourself. They are responsible to you alone for 
work. 

Certain negroes are mentioned by name : 

Many persons are indebted to Elsey for attending 
upon their negroes. I wish you to see them or send to 
them for the money. 

If Dolly is unable to return to cooking she must take 
charge of all the little negroes. 

Pay Free Moses two dollars and a half for taking care 
of things left at his landing. 

Bull Street, the fashionable street of the city, is a gem 
of a street, despite the incursions made at not infrequent 
intervals, by comparatively new, and often very ugly 
buildings. Every few blocks Bull Street has to turn 
out of its course and make the circuit of one of the small 
parks of which I have spoken, and this gives it charm 
and variety. On this street stands the De Soto Hotel, 
which, when I first went to Savannah, years ago, was by 
all odds the leading hostelry of the city. It is one of 
those great rambling buildings with a big porch out in 
front, an open court in back, and everything about it, in- 
cluding the bedchambers, very spacious and rather old 
fashioned. Lately the Savannah Hotel has been erected 
down at the business end of Bull Street. It is a modern 
hotel of the more conventional commercial type. But 
even down there, near the business part of town, it is not 
confronted by congested cobbled streets and clanging 
trolley cars, but looks out upon one of the squares, filled 

565 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

with magnolias, oaks and palms. But another time I 
think I shall go back to the De Soto. 

The building of the Independent Presbyterian Church, 
on Bull Street, is one of the most beautiful of its kind in 
the country, inside and out. It reminds one of the old 
churches in Charleston, and it is gratifying to know that 
though the old church which stood on this site (dedi- 
cated in 1819) burned in 1889, the congregation did not 
seize the opportunity to replace it with a hideosity in 
lemon-yellow brick, but had the rare good sense to dupli- 
cate the old church exactly, with the result that, though a 
new building, it has all the dignity and simple beauty of 
an old one. 

Broughton Street, the shopping street, crosses Bull 
Street in the downtown section, and looks ashamed of 
itself as it does so, for it is about as commonplace a look- 
ing street as one may see. There is simply nothing about 
it of distinction save its rather handsome name. 

Elsewhere, however, there are several skyscrapers, 
most of them good looking buildings. It seemed to me 
also that I had never seen so many banks as in Savan- 
nah, and I am told that it is, indeed, a great bank- 
ing city, and that the record of the Savannah banks 
for weathering financial storms is very fine. On a good 
many corners where there are not banks there are clubs, 
and some of these clubs are delightful and thoroughly 
metropolitan in character. I know of no city in the 
North, having a population corresponding to that of 
Charleston or of Savannah, which has clubs comparable 

566 



BEAUTIFUL SAVANNAH 

with the best dubs of these cities, or of New Orleans. 
When it is considered that of the population of these 
southern cities approximately one half, representing 
negroes, must be deducted in considering the population 
from which eligibles must be drawn, the excellence of 
southern clubs becomes remarkable in the extreme. 
Savannah, by the way, holds one national record in the 
matter of clubs. It had the first golf club founded in 
America. Exactly when the club was founded I can- 
not say, but Mr. H. H. Bruen, of Savannah, has in his 
possession an invitation to a golf club ball held in the 
old City Hall in the year 1811. 

The commercial ascendancy of Savannah over 
Charleston is due largely to natural causes. The port of 
Savannah drains exports from a larger and richer ter- 
ritory than is tapped by Charleston, though new rail- 
roads are greatly improving Charleston's situation In 
this respect. Savannah is a shipping port for cotton 
from a vast part of the lower and central South, and is 
also a great port for lumber, .and the greatest port in the 
world for "naval stores." I did not know what naval 
stores were when I went to Savannah. The term con- 
jured up in my mind pictures of piles of rope, pulleys 
and anchors. But those are not naval stores. Naval 
stores are gum products, such as resin and turpentine, 
which are obtained from the long-leafed pines of South 
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Florida. The traveler 
through these States cannot have failed to notice gashes 
on the tree-trunks along the way. From these the 

567 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

resinous sap exudes and is caught in cups, after which 
it is boiled, there in the woods, and thus separated into 
turpentine, resin and pitch. Vast quantities of these 
materials are stored on the great modern docks of Savan- 
nah. It is said that owing to wasteful methods, the 
long-leafed pine forests are being rapidly destroyed, and 
that this industry will die out before very long because 
the eager grabbers of to-day's dollars, having no thought 
for the future, fail to practise scientific forestry. 

All about Savannah, within easy reach by trolley, 
motor or boat, lie pleasant retreats and interesting things 
to see. The roads of the region, built by convict labor, 
are of the finest, and the convict prison camps are worth 
a visit. In the Brown Farm camp, living conditions are 
certainly more sanitary than in ninety nine out of a hun- 
dred negro homes. The place fairly shines with clean- 
liness, and there are many cases in which "regulars" at 
this camp are no sooner released than they offend again 
with the deliberate purpose of carrying out what may be 
termed a *'back to the farm" movement. The color line 
is drawn in southern jails and convict camps as else- 
where. White prisoners occupy one barracks; negroes 
another. The food and accommodations for both is the 
same. The only race discrimination I could discover 
was that when white prisoners are punished by flogging, 
they are flogged with their clothes on, whereas, with 
negroes, the back is exposed. The men in this camp are 
minor offenders and w^ear khaki overalls in place of the 
stripes in which the worse criminals, quartered in an- 

568 



BEAUTIFUL SAVANNAH 

other camp, arc dressed. Strict discipline is maintained, 
but the hfe is wholesome. The men are marched to 
work in the morning and back at night escorted l)y 
guards who carry loaded shotguns, and who always have 
with them a pack of ugly bloodhounds to be used in case 
escape is attempted. 

All the drives in this region are extremely pictur- 
esque, for the live-oak grows here at its best, and is to be 
seen everywhere, its trunk often twenty or more feet in 
circumference, its wide-spreading branches reaching 
out their tips to meet those of other trees of the same 
species, so that sometimes the whole world seems to have 
a groined ceiling of foliage, a ceiling which inevitably 
suggests a great shadowy cathedral from whose airy 
arches hang long gray pennons of Spanish moss, like 
faded, tattered battle-flags. 

On country roads you will come, now and then, upon 
a negro burial ground of very curious character. There 
may be such negro cemeteries in the upper Southern 
States, but if so I have never seen them. In this por- 
tion of Georgia they are numerous, and their distin- 
guishing mark consists in the little piles of household 
effects with which every grave is covered. I do not 
know whether this is done to propitiate ghosts and devils 
(generally believed to "hant" these graveyards), or 
whether it is the idea that the deceased can still find use 
for the assortment of pitchers, bowls, cups, saucers, 
knives, forks, spoons, statuettes, alarm-clocks, and 

569 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

heaven only knows what else, which were his treasured 
earthly possessions. 

In Savannah, I have heard Commodore Tatnall, who 
used to live at Bonaventure, credited with having origi- 
nated the saying "Blood is thicker than water," but I am 
inclined to believe that the Commodore merely made ap- 
posite use of an old formula. The story is told of 
one of the old Tatnalls that in the midst of a large 
dinner-party which he was giving at his mansion 
at Bonaventure plantation, a servant entered and in- 
formed him that the house was on fire. Whereupon the 
old thoroughbred, instead of turning fireman, persisted 
in his role of host, ordering the full dining-room equip- 
ment to be moved out upon the lawn, where the company 
remained at dinner while the house burned down. 

Most of the old houses of the plantations on the river 
have long since been destroyed. That at Whitehall 
was burned by the negroes when Sherman's army came 
by, but the old trees and gardens still endure, including a 
tall hedge of holly which is remarkable even in this 
florescent region. The old plantation house at the 
Hermitage, approached by a handsome avenue of live- 
oaks, is, I believe, the only one of those ancient mansions 
which still stands, and it does not stand very strongly, 
for, beautiful though it is in its abandonment and decay, 
it is like some noble old gentleman dying alone in an 
attic, of age, poverty and starvation — dying proudly 
as poor Charles Gayarre did in New Orleans. 

The Hermitage has, I believe, no great history save 

570 



BEAUTIFUL SAVANNAH 

what is written in its old chipped walls of stucco-covered 
brick, and the slave-cabins which still form a background 
for it. It is a story of baronial decay, resulting, doubt- 
less, from the termination of slavery. Hordes of ne- 
groes of the "new issue" infest the old slave-cabins and 
on sight of visitors rush out with almost violent demands 
for money. In return for which they wish to sing. Their 
singing is, however, the poorest negro singing I have 
ever heard. All the spontaneity, all the relish, all the 
vividness which makes negro singing wonderful, has 
been removed, here, by the fixed Idea that singing Is not 
a form of expression but a mere noise to be given vent 
to for the purpose of extracting backsheesh. It is 
saddening to witness the degradation, through what may 
be called professionalism, of any great racial quality. 
These negroes, half mendicant, half traders on the repu- 
tation of their race, express professionalism in its low- 
est form. They are more pitiful than the professional 
tarantella dancers who await the arrival of tourists, In 
certain parts of southern Italy, as spiders await flies. 



571 



CHAPTER LII 
MISS "JAX" AND SOME FLORIDA GOSSIP 

"Or mebbe you 're intendin" of 

Investments? Orange-plantin'? Pine? 
Hotel? or Sanitarium? What above 
This yea'th can be your hne? . . ." 

Sidney Lanier ("A Florida Ghost.") 

IT is the boast of Jacksonville (known locally by the 
convenient abbreviation "J^-"^") that it stands as the 
"Gate to Florida." But the fact that a gate is some- 
thing through which people pass — usually without stop- 
ping — causes some anguish to an active Chamber of 
Commerce, which has been known to send bands to the 
railway station to serenade tourists in the hope of entic- 
ing them to alight. 

If I were to personify Jacksonville, it would be, I 
think, as an amiable young woman, member of a do- 
mestic family, whose papa and mama had moved to 
Florida from somewhere else — for it is as hard to find a 
native of Jacksonville in that city as to find a native New 
Yorker in New York. Miss Jacksonville's papa, as I 
conceive it, has prospered while daughter has been 
growing up, and has bought for her a fine large house on 
a main corner, where many people pass. Having 
reached maturity Miss Jacksonville wishes to be in 

572 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Florida society — to give, as it were, iioiise parties, like 
those of her neighbors, the other winter resorts. She 
sees people passing her doors all winter long, and she 
says to herself: "1 must get some of these people to 
come in." 

To this end she brushes off the walk, lays a carpet on 
the steps, puts flowers in the vases, orders up a lot of 
fancy food and drink (from the very admirable Hotel 
Mason), turns on the lights and the Victor, leaves the 
front door invitingly open, and hopes for the best. 
Soon people begin to come in, but as she meets them she 
discovers that most of them have come to see papa on 
business ; only a few have come on her account. They 
help themselves to sandwiches, look about the room, and 
listen to what Miss Jacksonville has to say. 

Time passes. Nothing happens. She asks how they 
like the chairs. 

"Very comfortable," they assure her. 

''Do have some more to eat and drink," says she. 

"What is your history?" a guest asks her presently. 

'T haven't much history to speak of," she replies. 
'They tell me Andrew Jackson had his territorial gov- 
ernment about where my house stands, but I don't 
know much about it. We don't care much about his- 
tory in our family." 

"What do you do with yourself?" 

"Oh, I keep house, and go occasionally to the Woman's 
Club, and in the evenings father tells me about his busi- 
ness." 

573 



MISS "JAX" AND SOME FLORIDA GOSSIP 

"Very nice," says one guest, whom we shall picture as 
a desirable and wealthy young man from the North. 
"Now let 's do something. Do you play or sing? Are 
you athletic? Do you go boating on the St. John's 
River? Do you gamble? Can you make love?" 

"I dance a little and play a little golf out at the 
Florida Country Club," she says, with but small signs of 
enthusiasm. "The thing I 'm really most interested in, 
though, is father's business. He lost a lot of money in 
the fire of 1901, but he 's made it all back and a lot more 
besides." 

"What about surf -bathing?" asks the pleasure-seeking 
visitor, stifling a yawn. 

"There 's Atlantic Beach only eighteen miles from 
here. It 's a wonderful beach. Father 's putting a mil- 
lion in improvements out there, but there 's no time to 
go there just now. However, if you 'd like to, I can 
take you down and show you the new docks he has 
built." 

"Oh, no, thanks," says the guest. "I don't care for 
docks — not, that is, unless we can go boating." 

"I 'm afraid we can't do that," says Miss Jackson- 
ville. "We don't use the river much for pleasure. I 
can't say just why, unless it is that every one is 
too busy. . . . But please eat something more, and 
do have something to drink. There 's plenty for every 
one." 

"I must be running along," says the visitor. "I 've 
been invited to call at some other houses down the block. 

574 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

By the way, what is the name of your neighbor next 
door?" 

"St. Augustine," says Jacksonville, with a little re- 
luctance. "She is of Spanish descent and sets great 
store by it. If you call there she '11 show you a lot of 
interesting old relics she has, but I assure you that when 
it comes to commercial success her family is n't one-two- 
three with papa." 

"Thanks," says the visitor, "but just at the moment 
commerce does n't appeal to me. Who lives beyond 
her?" 

Miss Jacksonville sighs. "There are some pleasant, 
rather attractive people named Ormonde, beyond," she 
says, "and a lively family named Daytona next door to 
them. Neither family is in business, like papa. They 
just play all the time. Then come a number of modest 
places, and after them, in the big vellow and white 
house with the palm trees all around it — but I 'd advise 
you to keep away from there ! Yes, you 'd better go 
by that house. On the other side of it, in another lovely 
house, live some nicer, simpler people named Miami. 
Or if you like fishing, you might drop in on Mrs. Long- 
Key — she 's wholesome and sweet, and goes out every 
day to catch tarpon. Or, again, you might — " 

"What 's the matter with the people in the big yellow 
and white house surrounded by palm trees? Why 
shouldn't I go there?" asks the guest. 

"A young widow lives there," says Miss Jackson- 
ville primly. "I don't know much about her history, but 

575 



MISS "JAX" AND SOME FLORIDA GOSSIP 

she looks to me as though she had been on the stage. 
She 's frightfully frivolous — not at all one of our repre- 
sentative people." 

"Ah!" says the visitor. "Is she pretty?" 

"Well," admits Miss Jacksonville, "I suppose she is — 
in a fast way. But she 's all rouged and she over- 
dresses. Her bathing suits are too short at the bottom 
and her evening gowns are too short at the top. Yes, 
and even at that, she has a trick of letting the shoulder 
straps slip off and pretending she does n't know it has 
happened." 

"What's her name?" 

"Mrs. Palm-Beach." 

"Oh," says the visitor. "I 've heard of her. She 's 
always getting into the papers. Tell me more." 

Miss Jacksonville purses her lips and raises her eye- 
brows. "Really," she says, "I don't like to talk 
scandal." 

"Oh, come on! Do!" pleads the visitor. "Is she bad 
— bad and beautiful and alluring?" 

"Judge for yourself," says Miss Jacksonville sharply. 
"She keeps that enormous place of hers shut up except 
for about two months or so in the winter, when she 
comes down gorgeously dressed, with more jewelry than 
is worn b)/ the rest of the neighborhood put together. 
Few Southerners go to her house. It 's full of rich 
people from all over the North." 

"Is she rich ^" 

"You 'd think so to look at her — especially if you 

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AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

did n't know where she got her money. lUit she really 
has n't much of her own. She 's a grafter." 

'TIow^ does she manage it?" 

*'Men give her money." 

"But why?" 

"Because she know^s how to please the rich. She un- 
derstands them. She makes herself beautiful for them. 
She plays, and drinks, and gambles, and dances with 
them, and goes riding with them in wheel chairs by 
moonlight, and sits with them by the sea, and holds their 
hands, and gets them sentimental. There 's some scent 
she uses that is very seductive — none of the rest of us 
have been able to find out exactly what it is." 

"But how does she get their money?" 

"She never tells a hard-luck story — you can't get 
money out of the kind she goes with, that way. She 
takes the other tack. She whispers to them, and laughs 
with them, and fondles them, and makes them love her, 
and when they love her she says: 'But dearie, be rea- 
sonable! Think how many people love me! I like to 
have you here, you fat old darling with the gold jin- 
gling in your pockets! but I can't let you sit with me 
unless you pay. Yes, I 'm expensive, I admit. But 
don't you love this scent I wear? Don't you adore my 
tropical winter sea, my gardens, my palm trees, my 
moonlight, and my music ? They are all for you, dearie 
— so why shouldn't you pay? Don't I take you from 
the northern cold and slush ? Have n't I built a sidine 
for your private car, and made an anchorage for your 

577 



MISS "JAX" AND SOME FLORIDA GOSSIP 

yacht? Don't I let you do as you please? Don't I keep 
you amused? Don't you love to look at me? Don't I 
put my warm red lips to yours? Well, then, dearie, 
what is all your money for?' . . . That is her way of 
talking- to them! That is the sort of creature that she 
is!" 

"Shocking!" says the visitor, rising and looking for 
his hat. "You say hers is the third large house from 
here?" 

"Yes. Remember, she 's as mercenary as can be !" 

"Thanks. I can take care of myself. If she 's amus- 
ing that suits me. Good-by." 

In the vestibule he pauses to count his money. 

"Jacksonville seems to be a nice girl," he says to him- 
self as he hastens down the block. "I imagine she might 
make a good wife and mother, and that she 'd help her 
husband on in business. However, I 'm not thinking of 
getting married and settling down in Florida. I 'm 
out for some fun. I think I '11 run in and call upon 
Mrs. Palm-Beach." 



578 



CHAPTER LIII 
PASSIONATE PALM BEACH 

A very merry, dancing, drinking. 
Laughing, quaffing and unthintving time. 

— Dryden. 

LIKE all places in which idlers try to avoid finding 
out that they are idle, Palm Beach has very defi- 
nite customs as to where to go, and at what time 
to go there. Excepting in its hours for going to bed 
and getting up, it runs on schedule. The official day be- 
gins with the bathing hour — half past eleven to half 
past twelve — when the two or three thousand people 
from the pair of vast hotels assemble before the casino 
on the beach. Golfers will, of course, be upon the links 
before this hour ; fishermen will be casting from the pier 
or will be out in boats searching the sail fish — that being 
the "fashionable" fish at the present time; ladies of ex- 
cessive circumference will be panting rapidly along the 
walks, their eyes holding that look of dreamy determina- 
tion which painters put into the eyes of martyrs, and 
which a fixed intention to lose twenty pounds puts into 
the eyes of banting women. So, too, certain gentlemen 
of swarthy skin make their way to the casino sun parlor, 
where they disrobe and bake until the bathing hour. 
The object of this practice is to acquire, as nearly as a 

579 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

white man may, the complexion of a mulatto, and it is 
surprising to see how closely the skins of some more 
ardent members of the "Browning Club," as this group 
is called, match those of their chair boys. The under- 
lying theory of the "Browning Club" is that a triple- 
plated coat of tan, taken north in March, advertises the 
wearer as having been at Palm Beach during the entire 
winter, thus establishing him as a man not merely of 
means, but of great endurance. 

The women of Palm Beach seem to be divided into 
two distinct schools of thought on the subject of tanning. 
While none of them compete with the radicals of the 
"Browning Club," one may nevertheless observe that, in 
evening dress, many young ladies reveal upon their 
necks, shoulders, and arms, stenciled outlines of the 
upper margins of their bathing suits. Ladies of the 
opposing school, upon the contrary, guard the whiteness 
of their skins as jealously as the men of the "Browning 
Club" guard their blackness. Rather than be touched 
with tan, many ladies of the latter group deny them- 
selves the pleasures of the surf. The parasols beneath 
which they arrive upon the sands are not lowered until 
they are safely seated beneath the green and blue striped 
canvas tops of their beach chairs, and it may be ob- 
served that even then they are additionally fortified 
against the light, by wide black hats and thick dark veils 
draped to mask their faces up to the eyes; "harem" 
veils, they call them — the name, however, signifying 
nothing polygamous. 

580 




V- -^^^ ,■; 1 J. C *. N \ -... 



^'ocktail hour at The Breakers 



PASSIONATE PALM BEACH 

A pleasant diversion at the beginning of the bathing 
hour occurs when some mere one-horse miUionaire from 
a Middle-Western town appears on the beach with his 
family. He is newly arrived and is under the fond de- 
lusion that he is as good as anybody else and that his 
money is as good as any other person's money. Seeing 
the inviting rows of beach chairs, he and his family 
plump into several of them. They are hardly settled, 
however, when the man who attends to the beach chairs 
comes and asks them to get out, saying that the chairs 
are reserved. 

The other thinks the man is lying like a head waiter, 
and demands to know for whom the chairs are re- 
served. 

In reply the beach-chair man mentions, with suitable 
deference, the name of Mrs. Hopkinson Skipkinson 
Jumpkinson- Jones. 

"Well," cries the Middle-Westerner, "Mrs. Jones 
is n't here yet, is she? She can't use the chairs now, can 
she, if she is n't here?" 

Even without this evidence that he does not grasp at 
all, the seriousness of the beach-chair situation, the fact 
that the uncouth stranger has referred to Mrs. H. S. 
Jumpkinson-Jones merely as "Mrs. Jones," brands him 
among the Palm Beach "regulars" who have overheard 
him, as a barbarian of the barbarians. People in neigh- 
boring chairs at once turn their backs upon him and 
glance at each other knowingly with raised eyebrows. 
At this juncture, let us hope, the daughter of the in- 

581 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

truder manages to pry him loose; let us hope also that 
she takes him aside and tells him what everybody ought 
to know : namely, that Mrs. H. S. Jumpkinson-Jones has 
been a society leader ever since the "Journal" published 
the full-page Sunday story about her having gold fill- 
ings put in her Boston terrier's teeth. That was away 
back in 191 3, just before she was allowed to g-et her 
divorce from Royal Tewksbury Johnson III of Paris, 
Newport, and New York. The day after the divorce 
she married her present husband, and up to last year, 
when the respective wives of a munitions millionaire 
and a moving-picture millionaire began to cut in on her, 
no one thought of denying" her claim to be the most 
wasteful woman in Palm Beach. 

True, she may not come down to the beach to-day, but 
in that case it is obviously proper that her chairs — in- 
cluding those of her dog and her husband — remain mag- 
nificently vacant throughout the bathing hour. 

The lady is, however, likely to appear. She will be 
wearing one of the seventy hats which, we have learned 
by the papers, she brought with her, and a pint or so of 
her lesser pearls. Her dog — which is sometimes served 
beside her at table at the Beach Club, and whose diet 
is the same as her own, even to strawberries and cream 
followed by a demi tasse — will be in attendance ; and her 
husband, whose diet is even richer, may also appear if 
he has recovered from his matutinal headache. Here 
she will sit through the hour, gossiping with her friends, 

582 



PASSIONATE PALM BEACH 

watching the antics of several beautiful, dubious women, 
camp followers of the rich, who add undoubted interest 
to the place ; calling languidly to her dog : "Viens, Tou- 
tou! Viens vite!" above all waiting patiently, with 
crossed knees, for news-service photographers to come 
and take her picture — a picture which, when we see it 
presently in "Vogue," "Vanity Fair," or a Sunday news- 
paper, will present indisputable proof that Mrs. H. S. 
Jumpkinson-Jones and the ladies sitting near her (also 
with legs crossed) refrained from v^earing bathing suits 
neither through excessive modesty nor for fear of re- 
vealing deformity of limb. 

Many a Mrs. H. S. Jumpkinson-Jones has beaten her 
way to glory by the Palm Beach route. Many of the 
names which sound vaguely familiar when you read 
them in connection with the story of a jewel robbery, in 
lists of "those present," or in an insinuating paragraph 
in the tattered copy of "Town Topics" which you pick 
up, in lieu of reading matter, from the table in your den- 
tist's waiting room, first broke into the paradise of the 
society column by way of this resort. For a woman 
with money and the press-agent type of mind it is not a 
difficult thing to accomplish. One must think of sensa- 
tional things to do — invent a new fad in dress, or send 
one's dog riding each day in a special wheel chair, or 
bring down one's own private dancing instructor or golf 
instructor at $5,000 for the season. Above all, one must 
be nice to the correspondents of newspapers. Never 

583 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

must one forget to do that. Never must one imagine 
oneself so securely placed in society columns that one 
may forget the reporters who gave one that place. 

One lady who, for several seasons, figured extensively 
in the news from Palm Beach, fell into this error. She 
thought herself safe, and aUered her manner toward 
newspaper folk. But, alas ! thereupon they altered their 
manner toward her. The press clippings sent by the 
bureau to which she subscribed became fewer and fewer. 
Her sensational feats went unnoticed. At last came a 
ball — one of the three big balls of the season; a New 
York paper printed a list of names of persons who went 
to the ball ; a column of names in very small type. Lying 
in bed a few mornings later she read through the names 
and came to the end without finding her own. Thinking 
that she must have skipped it, she read the names over 
again with great care. Then she sent for her husband, 
and he read them. When it was clear to them both that 
her name was actually not there, it is said she went into 
hysterics. At all events, her husband came down in a 
rage and complained to the hotel management. But 
what could the management do? What can they do? 
The woman is doomed. The Palm Beach correspond- 
ents who "made" her have been snubbed by her and have 
unanimously declared "thumbs down." It is theirs to 
o-ive, but let no climber be unmindful of the fact that it 
is also theirs to take away! 

As Mrs. H. S. Jumpkinson-Jones looks over the top 
of her harem veil she may see a great glistening steam 

584 



PASSIONATE PALM BEACH 

yacht, with rakish masts and funnel, lying off the pier- 
head ; and down on the sand she may see the young mas- 
ter and mistress of that yacht : a modest, attractive pair, 
possessors of one of the world's great fortunes, yet not 
nearly so elaborately dressed, nor so insistent upon their 
"position," as the Jumpkinson- Joneses. By raising the 
brim of her hat a trifle Mrs. H. S. Jumpkinson-Jones 
may see, sweeping in glorious circles above the yacht, 
the hydroplane which, when it left the edge of the beach 
a few minutes since, blew back with its propeller a sting- 
ing storm of sand, and caused skirts to snap like flags 
in a hundred-mile-an-hour hurricane ; and in that hydro- 
plane she knows there is another multimillionaire. 

Near by, sitting disconsolately upon the sand, are the 
one-horse Middle-Western millionaire with his wife and 
daughter — the three who were ousted from her seats 
by the beach-chair man. Mrs. H. S. Jumpkinson-Jones, 
like every one who has spent a season, let alone half a 
dozen seasons, at Palm Beach, immediately recognizes 
the type. 

Father is the leading merchant of his town; mother 
the social arbiter; daughter the regnant belle. Father 
definitely did n't wish to come here, nor w'as mother 
anxious to, but daughter made them. Often she has 
read the lists of prominent arrivals at Palm Beach and 
seen alluring pictures of them taken on the sand. She 
has dreamed of the place, and in her dreams has seemed 
to hear the call of Destiny. Who knows? may it not be 
at Palm Beach that she w^ill meet himf — the beautiful 

585 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

and wealthy scion of a noble house who (so the for- 
tune teller at the Elks' Club bazaar told her) will rescue 
her from the narrow life at home, and transport her, as 
his bride, into a world of wonder and delight, and foot- 
men in knee-breeches. Daughter insisted on Palm 
Beach. So mother got a lot of pretty clothes for daugh- 
ter, and father purchased several yards of green and 
yellow railroad tickets, and off they went. They ar- 
rived at Palm Beach. They walked the miles of green 
carpeted corridor. They were dazed — as every one 
must be who sees them for the first time — at the stun- 
ning size of the hotels. They looked upon the endless 
promenade of other visitors. They went to the beach 
at bathing hour, to the cocoanut grove at the time for 
tea and dancing, in wheel chairs through the jungle 
trail and Reve d'Ete, to the waiters' cake walk in the 
Poinciana dining room, to the concert at the Breakers, 
to the palm room, and to the sea by moonlight; every- 
where they went they saw people, people, people: richly 
dressed people, gay people, people who knew quantities 
of other people; yet among them all was not one sin- 
gle being that they had ever seen before. After several 
days of this, father met a man he knew — a business 
friend from Akron. A precious lot of good that did! 
Why did n't father know the two young men who sat 
last night at the next table in the dining room? Even 
those two would have done just now. Clearly they had 
been mad to know her too, for they were likewise feel- 
ing desolate. Perhaps mother can get father to scrape 

586 



PASSIONATE PALM BEACH 

up an acquaintance with them. But alas, before this 
plan can be set in motion, the two young men have 
formed their own conclusions as to what Palm Beach 
is like when you do not know anybody in the place. 
They have departed. Next day, when mother enters 
daughter's room to say good night, she finds her weep- 
ing; and next day, to father's infinite relief, they start 
for home. So it has gone with many a bush-league 
belle. 

Even the Mrs. Jumpkinson-Joneses, satiated though 
they be with private cars, press notices, and Palm 
Beach, can hardly fail to be sensible to the almost deliri- 
ous beauty of the scene at bathing hour. 

Nowhere is the sand more like a deep, warm dust of 
yellow gold; nowhere is there a margin of the earth so 
splashed with spots of brilliant color : sweaters, parasols, 
bathing suits, canvas shelters — blue, green, purple, pink, 
yellow, orange, scarlet — vibrating together in the sharp 
sunlight like brush marks on a high-keyed canvas by 
Sorolla ; nowhere has flesh such living, glittering beauty 
as the flesh of long, white, lovely arms which flash out, 
cold and dripping, from the sea ; nowhere does water ap- 
pear less like water, more like a flowing waste of liquid 
emeralds and sapphires, held perpetually in cool solution 
and edged with a thousand gleaming, flouncing strings 
of pearls. 

Over the beach lies a layer of people, formed in 
groups, some of them costumed for the water, some for 
the shore ; some of them known to the great lady, many 

587 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

of them unknown to her. The groups are forever shift- 
ing as their members rise and run down to the sea, or 
come back shiny and dripping, to fling themselves again 
upon the warm sand, roll in it, or stretch out in lazy com- 
fort while their friends shovel it over them with their 
hands. Now one group, or another, will rise and form a 
grinning row while a snap-shot is taken; now they re- 
cline again; now they scamper down to see the hydro- 
plane come in; now they return, drop to the sand, and 
idly watch women bathers tripping past them toward the 
water. Here comes a girl in silken knickerbockers, with 
cuffs buttoning over her stockings like the cuffs of riding- 
breeches. Heads turn simultaneously as she goes by. 
Here is a tomboy in a jockey cap; here two women 
wearing over their bathing suits brilliant colored satin 
wraps which flutter revealingly in the warm, fresh fra- 
grant breeze. And now comes the slender, aristocratic, 
foreign-looking beauty who w^ears high-heeled slippers 
with her bathing costume, and steps gracefully to the 
water's edge under the shade of a bright colored Japa- 
nese parasol. It seems that every one must now be on 
the beach. But no! Here come the three most won- 
derful of all : the three most watched, most talked about, 
most spoiled, most coveted young women at Palm Beach. 
Their bathing suits are charming: very short, high 
waisted, and cut at the top like Empire evening gowns, 
showing lovely arms and shoulders. Hovering about 
them, like flies about a box of sweets, yet also with some- 
thing of the jealous guardianship of watchdogs, is their 

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usual escort of young men — for though they know none 
of the fashionable women, their beauty gives them a 
power of wide selection as to masculine society. 

One is a show girl, famous in the way such girls be- 
come famous in a New York season, vastly prosperous 
(if one may judge by appearances), yet with a pros- 
perity founded upon the capitalization of youth and 
amazing loveliness of person. The other two, less ad- 
vertised, but hardly less striking in appearance, have 
been nicknamed, for the convenience of the gossips, 
'The Queen of Sheba," and "The Queen of the May." 
They too suggest, somehow, association with the trivial 
stage, but it is said that one of them — the slender won- 
derfully rounded one — has never had the footlights in 
her face, but has been (in some respects, at least), a 
model. 

Like the climbers, like the bush league belle, these 
girls, we judge, brought definite ambitions with them to 
Palm Beach. Partly, no doubt, they came for pleasure, 
but also one hears stories of successful ventures made 
by men, on their behalf, at Beach Club tables, and of 
costly rings and brooches which they now possess, al- 
though they did not bring them with them. But after 
all, the sources from which come their jeweled trinkets 
may only be surmised, whereas, to the success of their 
desire for fun, the eyes and ears of the entire smiling 
beach bear witness. Watch them as they clasp hands 
and run down to the water's edge; see them prancing 
playfully where the waves die on the sand, while devoted 

589 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

swains launch the floating mattress upon which it is their 
custom to bask so picturesquely; see them now as they 
rush into the green waves and mount the softly rocking 
thing; observe the gleam of their white arms as, idly, 
they splash and paddle; note the languid grace of their 
recumbence: chins on hands, heels waving lazily in 
air ; hear them squeal in inharmonious unison, as a young 
member of the "Browning Club," makes as though to 
splatter them, or mischievously threatens to overturn 
their unwieldy couchlike craft. Free from the restric- 
tion of ideas about ''society," about the "tradition" of 
Palm Beach, about "convention," they seem to detect 
no difference between this resort and certain summer 
beaches, more familiar to them, and at the same time 
more used to boisterousness and cachinnation. They go 
everywhere, these girls. You will see them having big 
cocktails, in a little while, on the porch of the Breakers ; 
you will see them having tea, and dancing under the dry 
rustling palm fronds of the cocoanut grove, when the 
colored electric lights begin to glow in the luminous semi- 
tropical twilight; and you will see them, resplendent, 
at the Beach Club, dining, or playing at the green- 
topped tables. 

The Beach Club has been for some time, I suppose, the 
last redout held in this country by the forces of open, 
or semi-open gambling. Every now and then one hears 
a rumor that it is to be stormed and taken by the hosts of 
legislative piety, yet on it goes, upon its gilded way — a 

590 



PASSIONATE PALM BEACH 

place, it should be said, of orderly, spectacular distinc- 
tion. The Beach Club occupies a plain white house, 
low-spreading and unpretentious, but fitted most agree- 
ably within, and boasting a superb cuisine. Not every 
one is admitted. INIembers have cards, and must be 
vouched for, formally, by persons known to those who 
operate the place. Many of the quiet pleasant people 
who, leading their own lives regardless of the splurging 
going on about them, form the background of Palm 
Beach life — much as 'Valking ladies and gentlemen" 
form the crowd in a spectacular theatrical production — 
have never seen the inside of the Beach Club ; and I have 
little doubt that many visitors who drop in at Palm 
Beach for a few days never so much as hear of it. It is 
not run for them, nor for the "piker," nor for the needy 
clerk, but for the furious spenders. 

Let us therefore view the Beach Club only as an in- 
teresting adjunct to Palm Beach life, and let us admit 
that, as such, it is altogether in the picture. Let us, 
in short, seek, upon this brief excursion, not only to 
recover from our case of grippe, but to recover also 
that sense of the purely esthetic, without regard to moral 
issues, which we used to enjoy some years ago, before 
our legislatures legislated .virtue into us. Let us soar, 
upon the wings of our checkbook, in one final flight 
to the realms of unalloyed beauty. Let us, in consider- 
ing this most extravagantly passionate and passionately 
extravagant of American resorts, be great artists, who 

591 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

are above morals. Let us refuse pointblank to consider 
morals at all. For by so doing we may avoid giving 
ourselves away. 

The season wanes. Crowds on the beach grow thin- 
ner. Millionaires begin to move their private cars from 
Palm Beach sidings, and depart for other fashionable 
places farther north. Croupiers at the Beach Club 
stand idle for an hour at a time, though ready to spin the 
wheel, invitingly, for any one who saunters in. The 
shops hold cut-price sales. And we, regarding some- 
what sadly our white trousers, perceive that there does 
not remain a single spotless pair. The girl in Mr. Fos- 
ter's fruit store has more leisure, now, and smiles agree- 
ably as we pass upon our way to the hotel dining-room. 
The waiter, likewise, is not pressed for time. 

"They was seven-hunduhd an' twe've folks heah yes- 
tahday," he says. "On'y six-fohty-three to-day. Ah 
reckon they a-goin' t' close the Breakuhs day aftuh t'- 
mo'w." 

Still the flowers bloom ; still the place is beautiful ; still 
the weather is not uncomfortably warm. Nevertheless 
the season dies. And so it comes about that we depart. 

The ride through Florida is tedious. The miles of 
palmettoes, with leaves glittering like racks of bared cut- 
lasses in the sun, the miles of dark swamp, in which the 
cypresses seem to wade like dismal club-footed men, the 
miles of live-oak strung with their sad tattered curtains 
of Spanish moss, the miles of sandy waste, of pineapple 

592 



PASSIONATE PALM BEACH 

and orange groves, of pines with feathery palm-like tops, 
above all the sifting of line Florida dust, which covers 
everything inside the car as with a coat of flour — these 
make you wish that you were North again. 

The train stops at a station. You get off to walk 
upon the platform. The row of hackmen and hotel por- 
ters stand there, in gloomy silent defiance of the rapidly 
approaching end of things, each holding a sign bearing 
the name of some hotel. In another week the railway 
company may, if it wishes, lift the ban on shouting hotel 
runners. Let them shout. There will be nobody to 
hear. 

You buy a newspaper. 

Ah ! What is this ? ''Great Blizzard in New York- 
Trains Late — Wires Down." 

You know what New York blizzards are. You pic- 
ture the scenes being enacted there to-day. You see the 
icy streets with horses falling down. You see cyclonic 
clouds of snow whirl savagely around the corners of 
high buildings, pelting the homegoing hoards, whirling 
them about, throwing women down upon street cross- 
ings. You have a vision of the muddy, slushy subway 
steps, and slimy platforms, packed with people, their 
clothing caked with wet white spangles. You see them 
wedged, cross and damp, into the trains, and hear them 
coughing into one another's necks. You see emaciated 
tramps, pausing to gaze wanly into bakery windows: 
men without overcoats, their collars turned up, their 
hands deep in the pockets of their trousers, their heads 

595 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

bent against the storm; you see them walk on to 
keep from freezing. You remember Roscoe Conkhng. 
That sort of thing can happen in a New York bUzzard ! 
Little tattered newsboys, thinly clad, will die to-night 
upon cold corners. Poor widows, lacking money to buy 
coal, are shuddering even now in squalid tenements, and 
covering their wailing little ones with shoddy blankets. 

" Horrible !" you say, sighing upon the balmy air. 
Then, with the sweetly resigned philosophy of Palm 
Beach, you add: 

"Oh, well, what does it matter? / 'm in Florida any- 
how. After all it is a pretty good old world !" 



594 



CHAPTER LIV 
ASSORTED AND RESORTED FLORIDA 

"Some year or more ago, I s'posc, 
I roamed from Maine to Floridy, 
And, — see where them Palmettoes grows? 
I bought that httle key . . ." 

— Sidney Lanier ("A Florida Ghost.") 

FLORIDA in winter comes near to being all things 
to all men. To all she offers amusement plus 
her climate, and in no one section is the con- 
trast in what amusement constitutes, and costs, set forth 
more sharply than where, on the west coast of the State, 
Belleair and St. Petersburg are situated, side by side. 

The Hotel Belleview at Belleair compares favorably 
with any in the State, and is peopled, during the cold 
months, with affluent golf maniacs, for whom two fine 
courses have been laid out. 

When the pipes supplying water for the greens of 
his home course, at Brook, Indiana, freeze, annually, 
George Ade, for instance, knows that, instead of hiber- 
nating, it is time for him to take his white flannel suits, 
hang them on the clothesline in the back yard until the 
fragrance of the moth-ball has departed, pack them in 
his wardrobe trunk, and take his winter flight to the 
Belleview. He knows that, at the Belleview, he will 

595 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

meet hundreds of men and women who are suffering 
from the malady with which he is afflicted. 

The conversation at Belleair is, so far as my com- 
panion and I could learn, confined entirely to compari- 
sons between different courses, different kinds of clubs 
and balls, and different scores. Belleair turns up its 
nose at Palm Beach. It considers the game of golf as 
played at Palm Beach a trifling game, and it feels that 
the winter population of Palm Beach wastes a lot of 
time talking about clothes and the stock market when it 
might be discussing cleeks, midirons, and mashies. 
The woman who thinks it essential to be blond whether 
she is blond or not, and who regards Forty-second 
Street as the axle upon which the universe turns, would 
be likely to die of ennui in a week at Belleair, whereas, 
in Palm Beach, if she died in that time, it would prob- 
ably be of delight — with a possibility of alcoholism as a 
contributing cause. And likewise, though Belleair has 
plutocrats in abundance, they are not starred for their 
wealth, as are the Palm Beach millionaires, nor yet for 
their social position, but are rated strictly according to 
their club handicap. Hence it happens that if, speak- 
ing of a Palm Beach millionaire, you ask: "How did 
he make it?" you will be told the story of some combine 
of trusts, some political grafting, or some widely adver- 
tised patent medicine ; but if you ask in Belleair : "How 
did he make it?" the answer is likely to be: "He made 
it in 4, with a cleek." 

Consider on the other hand, St. Petersburg, with its 

596 



ASSORTED AND RESORTED FLORIDA 

cheap hotels, its boarding houses, its lunch rooms and 
cafeterias, and its winter population of farmers and 
their wives from the North. The people you see in St. 
Petersburg are identical with those you might see on 
market day in a county town of Ohio or Indiana. Sev- 
eral thousands of them come annually from several 
dozen States, and many a family of them lives through 
the winter comfortably on less than some other families 
spend at Belleair in a week, or at Palm Beach in a day. 

If I am any judge of the signs of happiness, there 
is plenty of it in the hearts of those who win- 
ter at St. Petersburg. The city park is full of contented 
people, most of them middle-aged or old. The women 
listen to the band, and the men play checkers under the 
palmetto-thatched shelter, or toss horseshoes on the 
greensward, at the sign of the Sunshine Pleasure Club 
— an occupation which is St. Petersburg's equivalent 
for Palm Beach's game of tossing chips on the green- 
topped tables of a gambling house. And yet — 

Is it always pleasant to be virtuous ? Is it always de- 
lightful to be where pious people, naive people, people 
who love simple pastimes, are enjoying themselves? I 
am reminded of a talk I had with a negro whose strong 
legs turned the pedals of a wheel chair in which my com- 
panion and I rode one day through the Palm Beach 
jungle trail. It is a wonderful place, that jungle, with 
its tangled trunks and vines and its green foliage swim- 
ming in sifted sunlight ; with its palms, palmettoes, ferns, 
and climbing morning-glories, its banana trees, gnarled 

597 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

rubber banyans, and wild mangoes — which are like 
trees growing upside down, digging their spreading 
branches into the ground. For a time we forgot the 
pedaling negro behind us, but a faint puffing sound on a 
slight up-grade reminded us, presently, that our party 
was not of two, but three. When the chair was running 
free again, one of us inquired of the chairman: 

"What would you do if you had a million dollars?" 

"Well, boss," replied the negro seriously, "Ah knows 
one thing Ah 'd do. No mattuh how much o' dis worl's 
goods Ah haid. Ah 'd alius get mah exuhclze." 

"That 's wise," my companion replied. "What kind 
of exercise would you take ?" 

"Ah ain't nevvuh jest stedied dat out, boss," re- 
turned the man. "But it sho' would be some kind o' 
exuhcize besides pushin' one o' dese-heah chaihs." 

"When you w^ere n't exercising would you go and 
have a good time?" 

"No, boss." 

"Why not?" 

"Well, boss, y' see Ah 's a 'ligious man. Ah is." 

"But can't people who are religious have a good 
time?" 

"Oh," said the negro, "dey might have deh little 
pleasuhs now an' den, but dey cain't hev no sich good 
times like othah folks kin. A man 't 's a 'ligious man, 
he cain't hey no sich good times like Mistuh Wahtuh- 
be'y's an' dem folks 'at was heah up to laist week. Ah 
was Mistuh Wahtuhbe'y's chaih boy. He gimme ninety- 

598 



ASSORTED AND RESORTED FLORIDA 

two dollahs an' fifty cents tips one week! Yassuh! 
Dat might be cha'ity but 't ain't 'ligion. Mistuh Dodge, 
his chaih boy 's been a-wohkin' fob 'im six weeks. 
I 'spec' Mistuh Dodge give dat boy fahve hund'ud dol- 
lahs if he give 'im a cent ! Mistuh Wahtuhbe'y's pahty, 
dey haid nineteen chaihs waitin' on 'em all de time, jest 
fob t' drive 'em f 'om de /io-tel to de club, an' de casino. 
Dat cos' 'em nineteen hund'ud dollahs a week, and de 
boys, dey ain't one o'em 'at git less'n hund'ud dolluhs 
fo' hisself. Dat 's de kin' o' gen'men Mistuh Wahtuh- 
be'y an' his pahty is. Ah 's haid sev'ul gen'men dis 
season dat ain't what you 'd jes' say, 'ligious, but dey 
was, as folks calls it, p'ofuse. Dey was one ol' gen'man 
heah two weeks, an' deh was a young lady what he haid 
a attachment on, an' evvy evenin' 'e use' t' take huh fob 
a wheel-chaih ride in de moonlight. Fuhst night Ah 
took 'em out he tuhn to me, an' he says : 'Look-a-heah, 
boy ! You sho you knows youah duties ?' 

" * Yassuh, boss,' Ah tell 'im. 'Deed Ah does !' 
" 'Den what is youah duties den ?' sez 'e. 
"Ah say: 'Boss, de chaih boy's duties, dey 's to be 
dumb, an' deef, an' blin', an' dey cain't see nothin', an' 
dey cain't say nothin', an' dey cain't heah nothin', and 
dey cain't — ' 

" 'Dass 'nuff,' he say. 'Ah sees you knows youah 
business. Heah 's fiffy dollahs.' " 

"Well," one of us asked presently, "what happened?" 
"Ah took 'em ridin' through de jungle trail, boss," he 
returned, innocently. 

599 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

"What did they do?" 

"How does Ah know, boss? Di'n' Ah have ma eyes 
covuhed wi' dat fiffy doUahs? Di'n' Ah have ma eahs 
stuff' wid it? Yassiih! An' Ah got ma mouf full o' 
it 3'///" 

The chair boys, bell boys, waiters, barbers, porters, 
bartenders, waitresses, chambermaids, manicures, and 
shop attendants one finds in Palm Beach, Belleair, Mi- 
ami, and many other winter resorts, are, numerically, 
a not inconsiderable part of the season's population, and 
the lives of these people who form a background of serv- 
ice, of which many an affluent visitor is hardly con- 
scious, parallel the lives of the rich in a manner that is 
not without a note of caricature. 

When the rich go South so do the hordes that serve 
them-; when the Florida season begins to close and the 
rich move northward, the serving population likewise 
begins to melt away ; if you are in Palm Beach near the 
season's end, and move up to St. Augustine, or Jack- 
sonville, or Augusta, or any one of a dozen other places, 
you are likely to recognize, here and there, a waiter, a 
bell-boy, or a chambermaid whom you tipped, some 
weeks earlier, preparatory to leaving a latitude several 
degrees nearer the Equator. When you leave the Poin- 
ciana or the Breakers at the season's close, your waiter 
may, for all you know, be in the Jim Crow car, ahead, 
and when you go in to dinner at the Ponce de Leon at 
St. Augustine, or the Mason at Jacksonville, you may 
discover that he too has stopped off there for a few 

600 



H 




ASSORTED AND RESORTED FLORIDA 

days, to gather in the linal tips. Nor must you fancy, 
when you depart for the North, that you have seen the 
last of him. Next summer when you take a boat up the 
Hudson, or go to Boston by the Fall River Line, or drop 
in at a hotel at Saratoga, there he will be, like an old 
friend. The bartender who mixes you a pick-me-up on 
the morning that you leave the Breakers, will be ready 
to start you on the downward path, at the beginning of 
the summer, at some Northern country club ; the barber 
who cuts your hair at the Royal Palm in Miami will be 
ready to perform a like service, later on, at some 
hotel in the Adirondacks or the White Mountains; 
the neat waitress who serves you at the Belleview at 
Belleair will appear before you three or four months 
hence at the Griswold near New London; the adept 
waiter from the Beach Club at Palm Beach will 
seem to you to look like some one you have seen be- 
fore when, presently, he places viands before you at 
Sherry's, or the Ritz, or some fashionable restaurant in 
London or Paris. Likewise, when you enter the barber 
shop of a large hostelry just off the board walk in At- 
lantic City, next July, you will find there, in the same 
generously ventilated shirt waist, the manicurist who 
caused your nails to glisten so superbly in the Florida 
sunlight; and if she has the memory for faces which is 
no small part of a successful manicurist's stock in trade, 
she will remember you, and where she saw you last, and 
will tell you just which of the young women from "The 
Follies" and the Century Theater are to be seen upon 

60 1 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

the beach that day, and whether they are wearing, here 
on the Jersey coast, those same surprising bathing suits 
which, last February, caused blase gentlemen basking 
upon the Florida sands to sit up, arise, say it was time 
for one last dip before luncheon, and then, without seem- 
ing too deliberate about it, follow the amazing nymphs 
in the direction of a matchless sea — that sea which, as a 
background for these Broadway girls in their long silken 
hosiery, takes on a tone of spectacular unreality, like 
some fantastic marine back drop devised by Mr. Dilling- 
ham or Mr. Ziegfeld. 



602 



CHAPTER LV 
A DAY IN MONTGOMERY 

I have walk 'd in Alabama 
My morning walk . . . 

— Walt Whitman. 

AS I have remarked before, it is a long haul from 
the peninsula of Florida to New Orleans. 
There are two ways to go. The route by way 
of Pensacola, following the Gulf Coast, looks shorter on 
the map but is, I believe, in point of time consumed, the 
longer way. My companion and I were advised to go 
by way of Montgomery, Alabama — a long way around 
it looked — where we were to change trains, catching a 
New Orleans-bound express from the North. 

It was nearly midnight when, after a long tiresome 
journey, we arrived in Alabama's capital, and after 
midnight when we reached the comfortable if curiously 
called Hotel Gay-Teague, which is not named for an 
Indian chief or a kissing game, but for two men who 
had to do with building it. 

We had heard that Montgomery was a quiet, sleepy 
old town, and had expected to go immediately to bed on 
our arrival. What then was our amazement at hear- 
ing, echoing through the wide street in front of the 

603 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

hotel, the sound of strident ragtime. Investigation dis- 
closed a gaudily striped tent of considerable size set up 
in the street and illuminated by those flaring naphtha 
lamps they use in circuses. Going over to the tent, we 
learned that there was dancing within, whereupon we 
paid our fifteen cents apiece and entered. I have for- 
gotten what produced the music — it may have been a 
mechanical piano or a hurdy-gurdy — but there was 
music, and it was loud, and there was a platform laid 
over the cobble-stones of the street, and on that plat- 
form ten or more couples were ''ragging," their shoul- 
ders working like the walking beams of side-wheelers. 
The men were of that nondescript type one would ex- 
pect to see in a fifteen-cent dancing place, but the women 
were of curious appearance, for all were dressed alike, 
the costume being a fringed khaki suit with knee-length 
skirt, a bandana at the neck, and a sombrero. On in- 
quiry I learned that this was called a "cowgirl" cos- 
tume. The dances were very brief, and in the in- 
tervals between them most of the dancers went to 
a "bar" at the end of the tent where (Alabama 
being a dry State) the beverage called "coca-cola" — a 
habit as much as a drink — wa^s being served in whisky 
glasses. 

Unable to understand why this pageant of supposed 
western mining-camp life should confront us in the 
streets of Alabama's capital, I made inquiry of an ami- 
able policeman who was on duty in the tent, and learned 
that this was not a regular Montgomery institution, but 

604 



A DAY IN MONT(JOi\ll^:RY 

one of the attractions of a street fair which had invaded 
the city — the main body of the fair being a block or two 
distant. 

These fairs, he said, travel about the country much 
as circuses do, making arrangements in advance with 
various organizations in different places to stand spon- 
sor for them. 

Long after we were in our beds that night we were 
kept awake by the sound of ragtime from the tent across 
the way. I arose next morning with the feeling of one 
who has had insufficient sleep, and a glance at my com- 
panion, who was already at table when I reached the 
hotel dining room, informed me that he was suffering 
from a like complaint. I took my seat opposite him in 
silence, and he acknowledged my presence with a nod 
which he accomplished without looking up from his 
newspaper. 

After breakfast there arrived a pleasant gentleman 
who announced himself as secretary of one of the city's 
commercial organizations. 

"We have a motor here," said the secretary, "and will 
show you points of interest. Is there anything in par- 
ticular you wish to see?" 

'T think," said my companion, "that it would be a 
good thing to see the street fair." 

"Oh, no," said the secretary earnestly. "You don't 
want to see that. There is nothing about it that is rep- 
resentative of Montgomery. It is just a traveling show 
such as you might run into anywhere." 

605 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

''Yes," I said, "but we never have run into one be- 
fore, and here it is." 

'T have said right along," declared the secretary, 
somberly, "that it was a great mistake to bring this fair 
here at all. I don't think you ought to pay any attention 
to it in your book. It will give people a wrong im- 
pression of our city." 

"Do you think it will, if I explain that it is just a 
traveling fair?" 

"Yes. Wait until you see what we have to show you. 
We want you to understand that Montgomery is a thriv- 
ing metropolis, sir!" 

"What is there to see?" 

"Montgomery," he replied, "is known as The City of 
Sunshine.' It is rich in history. It has superior hotels, 
picturesque highways, good fishing and hunting, two 
golf courses, seven theaters, a number of tennis courts, 
and unsurpassed artesian water. It has free factory 
sites, the cheapest electric power rates in the United 
States, and is the best-lighted city in the country." 

"We have some pretty fair street lighting in New 
York," interjected my companion, who takes much pride 
in his home town. 

"I said 'one of the best lighted,' " replied the secre- 
tary. 

"What is the population?" 

"Montgomery," the other returned, "is typical of 
both the Old and the New South. Though it may be 
called a modern model city, its wealth of history and 

606 



A DAY IN MONTGOMERY 

tradition are preserved with loving care by its myriad 
inhabitants." 

"How many inhabitants?" 

"Roses and other flowers are in bloom here through- 
out the year," said he. "Also there are six hundred 
miles of macadamized and picturesque highways in 
Montgomery County. Indeed, this region is a motor- 
ist's paradise." 

"How many people did you say?" 

"Montgomery," he answered, "is the trading center 
for a million prosperous souls." 

At this my companion, who had been reading up 
Montgomery in a guidebook, began to bristle with hid- 
den knowledge. 

"You say there are a million people here?" he de- 
manded. 

"Not right here," admitted the secretary. 

"Well, how many do you claim?" 

"Fifty-five thousand four hundred and ten." 

"Right in the city?" 

"Well, in the trolley-car territory." 

"But in the city itself?" my companion insisted. 

The secretary was fairly cornered. "The 19 lo cen- 
sus," he said, with a smile, "gave us about forty thou- 
sand." 

"Thirty-eight thousand one hundred and thirty-six," 
corrected my companion. He had not spent hours with 
the guidebook for nothing. 

When, presently, we got into the automobile, I gave 

607 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

another feeble chirp about the fair, but the secretary 
was adamant, so we yielded temporarily, and were 
whirled about the city. 

Montgomery is a charming old town, not only by 
reason of the definite things it has to show, but also be- 
cause of a general rich suggestion of old southern 
life. 

The day, by a fortunate chance, was Saturday, and 
everywhere we went we encountered negroes driving in 
from the country to market, in their rickety old wagons. 
On some wagons there would be four or five men and 
w^omen, and here and there one would be playing a 
musical instrument and they would all be singing, while 
the creaking of the wagon came in with an orches- 
tral quality which seemed grotesquely suitable. The 
mules, too, looked as though they ought to creak, and an 
inspection of the harness suggested that it was held to- 
gether, not so much by the string and wire with which 
it was mended, as by the fingers of that especial Provi- 
dence which watches over all kinds of absurd repairs 
made by negroes, and makes them hold for negroes, 
where they would not hold for white men. 

In an old buff-painted brick building standing on the 
corner of Commerce and Bibb Streets, the Confederate 
Government had its first offices, and from this building, 
if I mistake not, was sent the telegraphic order to fire 
on Fort Sumter. Another historical building is the 
dilapidated frame residence at the corner of Bibb and 

608 



A DAY IN MONTGOMERY 

Lee Streets, which was the first "White House of the 
Confederacy." This building is now a boarding house, 
and is in a pathetic state of decay. But perhaps when 
Montgomery gets up the energy to build a fine tourist 
hotel, or when outside capital comes in and builds one, 
the old house will be furbished up to provide a "sight" 
for visitors. 

There are several reasons why Montgomery would 
be a good place for a large winter-resort hotel, and if I 
were a Montgomery "booster" I should give less thought 
to free factory sites than to building up the town as a 
winter stopping place for tourists. The town itself is 
picturesque and attractive ; as to railroads it is well situ- 
ated (albeit the claim that Montgomery is the "Gateway 
to Florida" strikes 'me as a little bit exaggerated) ; the 
climate is delightful, and the surrounding country is not 
only beautiful but fertile. Furthermore, there are al- 
ready two golf clubs — one for Jews and one for Gentiles 
— and the links are reputed to be good. 

Unlike many southern cities of moderate size, Mont- 
gomery has well-paved streets, and the better resi- 
dence streets, being wide, and lined with trees and pleas- 
ant houses, each in its own lawn, give a suggestion of an 
agreeable home and social life — a suggestion which, by 
implication at least, report substantiates : for it has been 
said that the chief industry of Montgomery is that of 
raising beautiful young women to make wives for the 
rich men of Birmingham. 

On such pleasant thoroughfares as South Perry 

609 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Street, it may be noticed that many of the newer houses 
have taken their architectural inspiration from old ones, 
with the result that, though "originality" does not jump 
out at the passer-by, as it does on so many streets. North 
and South, which are lined with the heterogeneous 
homes of prosperous families, there is an agreeable 
architectural harmony over the town. 

This is not, of course, invariably true, but it is truer, 
I think, in Montgomery than in most other cities, and 
if Montgomery is defaced by the funny little settlement 
called Bungalow City, that settlement is, at least, upon 
the outskirts of the town. Bungalow City is without 
exception the queerest real-estate development I ever 
saw. It consists of several blocks of tiny houses, stan(f- 
ing on tiny lots, the scale of everything being so small 
as to suggest a play village for children. The houses 
are, however, homes, and I was told that in some of 
them all sorts of curious space-saving devices are in- 
stalled — as, for instance, tables and beds which can be 
folded into the walls. Not far from this little settlement 
is an old house which used to be the home of Tweed, 
New York's notorious political boss, who, it is said, 
used to spend much time here. 

The chief lion of the city is the old State Elouse, which 
stands on a graceful eminence in a small well-kept park. 
Just as the New York State Capitol is probably the most 
shamefully expensive structure of the kind in the entire 
country, that of Alabama is, I fancy, the most credit- 
ably inexpensive. Building and grounds cost $335,000. 

610 



A DAY IN MONTGOMERY 

Moreover, the Capitol of Alabama is a better-looking 
building than that of New York, for it is without ginger- 
bread trimmings, and has about it the air of honest sim- 
plicity that an American State House ought to have. Of 
course it has a dome, and of course it has a columned 
portico, but both are plain, and there is a large clock, in 
a quaint box-like tower, over the peak of the portico, 
which contributes to the building a curious touch of in- 
dividuality. At the center of the portico floor, under 
this clock, a brass plate marks the spot where Jefferson 
Davis stood when he delivered his inaugural address, 
February i8, 1861, and in the State Senate Chamber, 
within — a fine simple room with a gallery of peculiar 
grace — the Provisional Government of the Confederacy 
was organized. The flag of the Confederacy was, I be- 
lieve, adopted in this room, and was first flung to the 
breeze from the Capitol building. 

It was past three in the afternoon when we left the 
State House, and we had had no luncheon. 

"Now," said my companion as we returned to the 
automobile, 'T think we had better have something to 
eat, and then go to the fair." 

"But you were going to give up the fair," put in the 
secretary. 

"Oh, no," we said in chorus. 

"I have arranged about luncheon," he returned. 
"We will have it served at the hotel in a short time. 
But first there are some important sights I wish you to 
see." 

611 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

"Man shall not live by sights alone," objected my com- 
panion. "What are you going to show us?" 

"We have a beautiful woman's college." 

"That," said my companion, "is the one thing that 
could tempt me. How many beautiful women are 
there?" 

"It 's not the women — it 's the building," the secretary 
explained. 

"Then," said my companion firmly, "I think we 'd bet- 
ter go and have our lunch." 

It seemed to me time to back him up in this demand. 
By dint of considerable insistence we persuaded our en- 
thusiastic cicerone to drive to the hotel, where we found 
a table already set for us. 

"I want to tell you," said the secretary as we sat 
down, "about the agricultural progress this section has 
been making. Until recently our farmers raised noth- 
ing but cotton ; they did n't even feed themselves, but 
lived largely on canned goods. But the boll weevil and 
the European War, affecting the cotton crop and the 
cotton market as they did, forced the farmers to wake 
up." 

The secretary talked interestingly on this subject for 
perhaps a quarter of an hour, during which time we 
waited for luncheon to be served. 

"You see," he said, "our climate is such that it is pos- 
sible to rotate crops more than in most parts of the 
country. Cotton is now a surplus crop with us, and our 

612 





St ' 



-M's 



1 



\,£<^ 



Harness held together by that especial Providence which watches over negro 

mendings 



A DAY IN MONTGOMERY 

farmers are raising cattle, vegetables, and food pro- 
ducts." 

"Speaking of food products," said my companion, "I 
wonder if we could hurry up the lunch?" 

"It will be along in a little while," soothed the secre- 
tary. Then he returned to agriculture. 

Ten minutes more passed. I saw that my companion 
was becoming nervous. 

"I 'm sorry to trouble you," he said at last, "but if we 
can't speed up this luncheon, I don't see how I can wait. 
You see, we are leaving town this evening, and I have 
an awful lot to do." 

"I '11 step back and investigate," the secretary said, 
rising and moving toward the kitchen door. 

When he was out of hearing, my companion leaned 
toward me. 

"I suspect this fellow !" he said. 

"What of?" 

"I think he 's delaying us on purpose. He 's a nice 
chap, but it 's his business to boost this town, and he 's 
artful. He does n't want us to see the street fair. 
That 's why he 's stalling like this !" 

Now, however, the secretary returned, followed by a 
waiter bearing soup. 

The soup was fine, but it was succeeded by another 
long interval, during which the secretary said some 
very, very beautiful things about the charm of Mont- 
gomery life. However, it was clear to me that my com- 

613 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

panion was not interested. After he had looked at his 
watch several times, and drummed a long tattoo upon 
the table, he arose, declaring: 

"I can't wait another minute." 

"Sit down, my dear fellow," said the secretary in his 
most genial tone. "I am having some special south- 
ern dishes prepared for you." 

"You 're very kind," said my companion, "but I must 
get to work. It 's half-past four now ; we are leaving 
in a few hours. It will take me an hour to make my 
sketches, and the light will be failing pretty soon." 

"What are you going to sketch?" It seemed to me 
that there was suppressed emotion in the secretary's 
voice as he asked the question. 

"Why, the street fair." 

"Surely, you 're not going to drazv it?" 

"Why not?" 

"It 's not representative of Montgomery. You ought 
to do something representative! What pictures have 
you made here?" 

"I made one of those negroes driving in to market," 
said my companion, "and one of the dancing cowgirls 
in the tent across the way — the ones who kept us awake 
last night." 

"My God !" cried the secretary, turning to me. "You 
intend to print such pictures and say that they represent 
the normal life of this city?" 

"No, I won't say anything about it." 

"But — " the secretary arose and looked wanly at the 

614 



A DAY IN MONTGOMERY 

illustrator — "but you have n't drawn any of our pretty 
homes ! You did n't draw the golf clubs — not either one 
of them! You didn't draw the State House, or the 
Confederate Monument, or the Insane Asylum, or 
anything!" 

''I have n't had time." 

''Well, you have time now ! I tell you what : We '11 
let this luncheon go. I '11 take you to the top of our 
tallest building, and you can draw a panoramic bird's- 
eye view of the entire city. That will be worth while." 

My companion reached out, helped himself to a French 
roll, and put it in his pocket. 

''No," he said. 'T will not go to the top of a high 
building with you." 

"But why not?" 

"Because," he replied, "I am afraid you would try to 
push me off the roof to prevent my drawing the street 
fair." 

I do not remember that the secretary denied having 
harbored such a plan. At all events, he countermanded 
the remainder of the luncheon order and departed with 
us. 

At the entrance of an office building he made one final 
desperate appeal: "Just come up to the top floor and 
see the view !" 

But we stood firm, and he continued with us on our 
way. 

The fair was strung along both sides of a wide, 
cobbled street. It was really a very jolly fair, with the 

615 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

usual lot of barkers and the usual gaping crowd, plus 
many negroes, who stood fascinated before the highly 
colored canvas signs outside the tents, with their bizarre 
pictures of wild animals, snake charmers, "Nemo, the 
Malay Prince," and "The Cigarette Fiend," pictured 
as a ghastly emaciated object with a blue complexion, 
and billed as "Endorsed by the Anti-Cigarette League 
of America." I wished to inquire why an anti-cigarette 
league should indorse a cigarette fiend, but lack of time 
compelled us to press on, leaving the apparent paradox 
unsolved. 

As we progressed between the tents and the booths 
with their catchpenny "wheels of fortune," and ring- 
tossing enticements, the secretary maintained a protest- 
ing silence. 

Near the end of the block we stopped to listen to a 
particularly vociferous barker. I saw my companion 
take his pad from his pocket and place it under his 
arm, while he sharpened a pencil. 

"Come!" cried the secretary. "Come across the 
square and let me show you our beautiful bronze foun- 
tain. Draw that!" 

But my companion was already beginning to sketch. 
He was drawing the barker and the crowd. 

Meanwhile an expression of horror came into the 
secretary's face. Looking at him, I became conscience- 
stricken. 

"Come away," I said gently, taking him by the arm. 
"Don't watch him draw. He draws wonderfully, but 

6i6 




* W.M</t^<i>4 N^ - 



It was a very jolly fair, with the usual lot of barkers and the usual gaping crowd 



A DAY IN MONTGOMERY 

Art for Art's sake does n't appeal to you just now. The 
better he draws the worse it will make you feel. Let me 
get your mind off all this. Let me take you over to the 
autodrome, where we can see Mr. O. K. Hager and his 
beautiful sister, Miss Olive Hager, the 'Two Daredevil 
Motorcyclists, in the Thrilling Race against Death.' 
That will make you forget." 

"No," said the secretary, shaking his head with a de- 
spondency the very sight of which made me sad; 'T have 
letters to sign at the office." 

"And we have taken up your whole day !" 

*Tt has been a pleasure," he said kindly. "There is 
only one thing that worries me. Those drawings are 
not going to represent what is typical of Montgomery 
life. Not in the least !" 

There arose in me a sudden desire to comfort him. 

"How would it be," I suggested, "if I were to print 
that statement in my book?" 

He looked at me in surprise. 

"But you could n't very well do that, could you ?" 

"Certainly," I replied. 

His face brightened. It was delightful to see the 
change come over him. 

"For that matter," I went on, "I might say even more. 
I could say that, while I admire my companion as a man, 
and as an artist, he lacks ingenuity in ordering break- 
fast. He always reads over the menu and then orders 
a baked apple and scrambled eggs and bacon. Would 
you like me to attack him on that line also?" 

617 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

"Oh, no," said the secretary. "Nothing of that kind. 
It 's just about these pictures. They are n't representa- 
tive. If you '11 say that, I '11 be more than satisfied." 

Presently we parted. 

"Don't forget!" he said as we shook hands in fare- 
well. 

And I have not forgotten. Moreover, to give full 
measure, I am going to ask the printer to set the state- 
ment in italics: 

The drawings accompanying this chapter are not rep- 
resentative of what is typical of Montgomery life. 

With this statement my companion is in full accord. 
He admits that he would have drawn the State House 
had there been no fair, to interfere. But, as with cer- 
tain items on the breakfast bill, street fairs are a passion 
with him. And so they are with me. 



6i8 



CHAPTER LVI 
THE CITY OF THE CREOLE 

WHEN a poet, a painter, or a sculptor wishes 
to personify a city, why does he invariably 
give it the feminine gender? Why is this 
so, even though the city be named for a man, or for a 
masculine saint? And why is it so in the case of com- 
monplace cities, commercial cities, and ugly, sordid 
cities? It is not difficult to understand why a beauti- 
ful, sparkling city, like Washington or Paris, suggests 
a handsome woman, richly gowned and bedecked with 
jewels, but it is hard to understand why some other 
cities, far less pleasing, seem somehow to be stamped 
with the qualities of woman-nature rather than man- 
nature. Is it perhaps because the nature of all cities is 
so complicated ? Is it because they are volatile, change- 
ful, baffling? Or is it only that they are the mothers 
of great families of men? 

When I arrive in a strange city I feel as though I 
were making the acquaintance of a woman of whom I 
have often heard. I am curious about her. I am alert. 
I gaze at her eagerly, wondering if she is as I have imag- 
ined her. I try to read her expression while listening 
to her voice. I consider her raiment, noticing whether 
it is fine, whether it is good only in spots, and whether 

619 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

it is well put together. I inspect the important build- 
ings, boulevards, parks, and monuments with which she 
is jeweled, and judge by them not only of her pros- 
perity, but of her sense of beauty. Before long I have 
a distinct impression of her. Sometimes, as with a 
woman, this first impression has to be revised; some- 
times not. Sometimes, on acquaintance, a single fea 
ture, or trait, becomes so important in my eyes that all 
else seems inconsequential. A noble spirit may cover 
physical defects; beauty may seem to compensate for 
weaknesses of character. The spell of a beautiful city 
which is bad resembles the spell of such a city's proto- 
type among women. 

Some young growing cities are like young growing 
women of whom we think: "She is as yet unformed, 
but she will fill out and become more charming as she 
grows older." Or again we think: "She is somewhat 
dowdy and run down at the heels but she is ambitious, 
and is replenishing her wardrobe as she can afford it." 
One expects such failings in young cities, and readily 
forgives them where there is wholesome promise for 
the future. But where old cities become slovenly, the 
afifair is dififerent, for then it means physical decay, and 
physical decay should never come to a city — for a 
city is not only feminine, but should be immortal. The 
symbol for every city should be a goddess, forever in 
her prime. 

Among southern cities Richmond is the grandc dame; 
she is gray and distinguished, and wears handsome old 

620 




The mysterious old Absinthe House, founded 1799 



THE CITY OF THE CRl^JLE 

brocades and brooches. Richmond is aquihne and crisp 
and has much "manner." But though Charleston is 
actually the older, the wonderful beauty of the place, the 
softness of the ancient architectural lines, the sweet 
scents wafting from walled gardens, the warmth of 
color everywhere, gives the place that very quality of 
immortal youth and loveliness which is so rare in cities, 
and is so much to be desired. Charleston I might alle- 
gorize in the person of a young woman I met there. I 
was in the drawing-room of a fine old house; a beauti- 
fully proportioned room, paneled to the ceiling, hung 
with family portraits and other old paintings, and fur- 
nished with mahogany masterpieces a century and a 
half old. 'The girl lived in this house. She was not 
exactly pretty, nor was her figure beautiful in the usual 
sense; yet it was beautiful, all the same, with a sort of 
long-limbed, supple, aristocratic aliveness. Most of all 
there was about her a great fineness — the kind of fine- 
ness which seems to be the expression of generations of 
fineness. She was the granddaughter of a general in 
the Civil War, the great-granddaughter of an ambas- 
sador, the great-great-granddaughter of a Revolution- 
ary hero, and though one could not but be thankful that 
she failed of striking resemblance to the portraits of 
these admirable ancestors, nevertheless it seemed to me 
that, had I not known definitely of their place in her 
family history, I might almost have sensed them hover- 
ing behind her: a background, nebulous and shadowy, 
out of which she had emerged. 

621 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Memphis, upon the other hand, will always be to me a 
lively modern debutante. I vision her as dancing — 
dancing to Handy's ragtime music — all shoulders, neck, 
and arms, and tulle, and twenty-dollar satin slippers. 
Atlanta, too, is young, vivid, affluent, altogether modern ; 
while as for Birmingham, she is pretty, but a little 
strident, a little overdressed; touched a little with the 
amiability, and the other qualities, of the noiweau riche. 
The beauty of New Orleans is of a different kind. 
She is a full-blown, black-eyed, dreamy, drawly crea- 
ture, opulent of figure, white of skin, and red of lip. 
Like San Francisco she has Latin blood which makes 
her love'and preserve the carnival spirit ; but she is more 
voluptuous than San Francisco, for not only is she 
touched with the languor and the fire of her climate, 
but she is without the virile blood of the forty-niner, or 
the invigorating contact of the fresh Pacific wind. In 
my imaginary picture I see her yawning at eleven in the 
morning, when her negro maid brings black coffee to 
her bedside — such wonderful black coffee! — whereas, 
at that hour, I conceive San Francisco as having long 
been up and about her affairs. Even in the afternoon 
I fancy my New Orleans beauty as a little bit relaxed. 
But at dinner she becomes alive, and after dinner more 
alive, and by midnight she is like a flame. 

I must admit, however, that of late years New 
Orleans has developed a perfect case of dual personal- 
ity, and that, as often happens where there is dual per- 
sonality, one side of her nature seems altogether incom- 

622 



THE CITY OF THE CREOLE 

patible with the other. The very new New Orleans has 
no resemblance to the picture I have drawn; moreover, 
my picture is not her favorite likeness of herself. She 
prefers more recent ones — pictures showing the lines 
of determination which, within the last ten years have 
stamped themselves upon her features, as she has fought 
and overcome the defects of character which logically 
accompanied her peculiar, temperamental type of 
charm. I, upon the other hand, am like some lover who 
values most an older picture of the woman he adores. 
I admire her for building character, but it is by her 
languorous beauty that I am infatuated, and the por- 
trait which most effectively displays that beauty is the 
one for which I care. 

Her very failings were so much a part of her that 
they made us the more sympathetic ; she was too lovely 
to be greatly blamed for anything; gazing into her eyes, 
we hardly noticed that there was dust vmder the piano 
and in the corners; dining at her sumptuous table, we 
gave but little thought to the fact that the cellar was 
damp, the house none too healthy, and that there were 
mosquitoes and rats about the place; nor did it seem to 
matter, in face of her allurements, that she was shift- 
less, extravagant, improvident in the management of 
her affairs. K these things were brought to our atten- 
tion, we excused them on the grounds of Latin blood 
and enervating climate. 

But if we excused her, she did not excuse herself. 
Without being shaken awake by an earthquake, or 

623 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

forced to action by a devastating fire or flood, she set 
to work, calmly and of her own volition, to reform her 
character. 

First she cleaned house, providing good surface drain- 
age, an excellent filtered water supply from the river 
in place of her old mosquito-breeding cisterns, and mod- 
ern sewers in place of cesspools. She killed rats by the 
hundreds of thousands, rat-proofed her buildings, and 
thus, at one stroke, eliminated all fear of bubonic plague. 
She began to take interest in the public schools, and 
soon trebled their advantages. She concerned herself 
with the revision of repressive tax laws. She secured 
one of the best street railway systems in the country. 
But, perhaps most striking of all, she set to work to 
build scientifically toward the realization of a gigantic 
dream. This dream embodies the resumption by New 
Orleans of her old place as second seaport city. To 
this end she is doing more than any other city to revive 
the commerce of the Mississippi River, and is at the 
same time making a strong bid for trade by way of the 
Panama Canal, as well as other sea traffic. She has 
restored her forty miles of water front to the people, 
has built municipal docks and warehouses at a cost of 
millions, and has so perfectly coordinated her river- 
rail-sea traffic-handling agencies that rates have been 
greatly reduced. Upon these, and related enterprises, 
upward of a hundred millions are being spent, and the 
vast plan is working out with such promise that one 
almost begins to fear lest New Orleans become too much 

624 



THE CITY OF THE CREOLE 

enamored of her new-found materialism — lest the easy- 
going, pleasure-loving, fascinating Creole belle be trans- 
formed into the much-less-rare and much-less-desirable 
business type of woman : a woman whose letters, instead 
of being written in a fine French hand and scented with 
the faint fragrance of vertivert, are typewritten upon 
commercial paper; whose lips, instead of causing one 
to think of kisses, are laden with the deadly cant of 
commerce; whose skin, instead of seeming to be made 
of milk and rose leaves, is dappled with industrial soot. 

Lord Chesterfield in one of his letters to his son, in- 
timated that beautiful women desire to be flattered upon 
their intelligence, while intelligent women who are not 
altogether ugly like to be told that they are beautiful. 
So with New Orleans. Speak of her individuality, her 
picturesqueness, her gift of laughter, and she will listen 
with polite ennui; but admire her commercial progress 
and she will hang upon your words. Gaiety and charm 
are so much a part of her that she not only takes them 
as a matter of course, but seems to doubt, sometimes, 
that they are virtues. She is like some unusual and 
fascinating woman who, instead of rejoicing because 
she is not like all other women, begins to wonder if she 
ought not to be like them. Perhaps she is wrong to be 
gay? Perhaps her carnival proves her frivolous? Per- 
haps she ought not to continue to hold a carnival each 
year? 

Far to the north of New Orleans the city of St. Paul 
was afflicted, some years since, by a similar agitation. 

625 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

It will be remembered that St. Paul used to build an ice 
palace each year. People used to go to see it as they 
go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Then came some 
believer in the standardization of cities, advancing the 
idea that ice palaces advertised St. Paul as a cold place. 
As a result they ceased to be built. St. Paul threw 
away something which drew attention to her and which 
gave her character. Moreover, I am told this mania 
went so far that when folders were issued for the pur- 
pose of advertising the region, they were designed to 
suggest the warmth and brilliance of the tropics. Had 
St. Paul a bad climate, instead of a peculiarly fine one, 
we might feel sympathetic tolerance for these perform- 
ances, but a city which enjoys cool summers and dry, 
bracing winters has no apologies to make upon the score 
of climate, and only need apologize if she tries to make 
us think that bananas and cocoanuts grow on sugar- 
maple trees. However, in the last year or two, St. Paul 
has perceived the folly of her course, and has resumed 
her annual carnival. 

In the case of New Orleans I cannot believe there is 
real danger that the carnival will be given up. Instead, 
I believe that the business enthusiasts will be appeased 
— as they were a year or two ago, for the first time in 
carnival history — by the inclusion of an industrial 
pageant glorifying the city's commercial renaissance. 
Also the New Orleans newspapers soothe the spirit of 
the Association of Commerce, at carnival time, by pub- 
lishing items presumably furnished by that capable or- 

626 



THE CITY OF THE CREOLE 

ganization, showing that business is going on as usual, 
that bank clearings have not diminished during the fes- 
tivities, and that, despite the air of happiness that per- 
vades the town. New Orleans is not really beginning to 
have such a good time as a stranger might suppose from 
superficial signs. With such concessions made to sol- 
emn visaged commerce, is the carnival continued. 

There are at least six cities on this continent which 
every one should see. Every one should see New York 
because it is the largest city in the world, and because 
it combines the magnificence, the wonder, the beauty, 
the sordidness, and the shame of a great metropolis; 
every one should see San Francisco because it is so 
vivid, so alive, so golden; every one should see Wash- 
ington, the clean, white splendor of which is like the 
embodiment of a national dream; every one should see 
the old gray granite city of Quebec, piled on its hill above 
the river like some fortified town in France; every one 
should see the sweet and aristocratic city of Charleston, 
which suggests a museum of tradition and early Ameri- 
can elegance; and of course every one should see New 
Orleans. 

As to whether it is best to see the city in everyday 
attire, or masked for the revels, that is a matter of 
taste, and perhaps of age as well. To any one who 
loves cities, New Orleans is always good to see, while 
to the lover of spectacles and fetes the carnival is also 
worth seeing — once. The two are, however, hardly to 

627 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

be seen to advantage simultaneously. To visit New 
Orleans in carnival time is like visiting some fine old 
historic mansion when it is all in a flurry over a fancy- 
dress ball. The furniture is moved, master, mistress 
and servants are excited, the cook is overworked and 
is perhaps complaining a little, and the brilliant cos- 
tumes of the masquerade divert the eye of the visitor 
so that he hardly knows what sort of house he is in. 
Attend the ball if you like, but do not fail to revisit 
the house when normal conditions have been restored; 
see the festivities of Mardi Gras if you will, but do not 
fail to browse about old New Orleans and sit down at 
her famous tables when her chefs have time to do their 
best. 



628 



CHAPTER LVII 
HISTORY, THE CREOLE, AND HIS DUELS 

CANAL STREET is to New Orleans much more 
than Main Street is to Buffalo, much more than 
Broad Street is to Philadelphia, much more 
than Broadway and Fifth Avenue are to New York, for 
Canal Street divides New Orleans as no other street 
divides an American city. It divides New Orleans as 
the Seine divides Paris, and there is not more difference 
between the right bank of the Seine and the Latin 
Quarter than between American New Orleans and 
Creole New Orleans : between the newer part of the city 
and the vieux carre. The sixty squares ("islets" ac- 
cording to the Creole idiom, because each block was 
literally an islet in time of flood) which comprise the old 
French town established in 1718 by the Sieur de Bien- 
ville, are unlike the rest of the city not merely in archi- 
tecture, but in all respects. The street names change 
at Canal Street, the highways become narrower as you 
enter the French quarter, and the pavements are made 
of huge stone blocks brought over long ago as ballast in 
sailing ships. Nor is the difference purely physical. 
For though they will tell you that this part of the city 
is not so French and Spanish as it used to be, that it has 
run down, that large parts of it have been given over to 

629 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Italians of the lower class, and to negroes, it remains 
not only in appearance, but in custom, thought and 
character, the most perfectly foreign little tract of land 
in the whole United States. Long ago, under the 
French flag, it was a part of the Roman Catholic bishop- 
ric of Quebec; later under the Spanish flag, a part of 
that of Havana; and it is charming to trace in old 
buildings, names, and customs the signs of this blended 
French and Spanish ancestry. 

La Salle, searching out a supposed route to China 
by way of the Mississippi River, seems to have per- 
ceived what the New Orleans Association of Commerce 
perceives to-day: that the control of the mouth of the 
river ought to mean also the control of a vast part of 
the continent. At all events, he took possession in 1682 
in the name of the French King, calling the river St. 
Louis and the country Louisiana. The latter name 
persisted, but La Salle himself later rechristened the 
river, giving it the name Colbert, thereby showing that 
in two attempts he could not find a name one tenth as 
good as that already provided by the savages. The "St. 
Louis River" might, from its name, be a fair-sized 
stream, but "Colbert" sounds like the name of a river 
about twenty miles long, forty feet wide at the mouth, 
and five feet deep at the very middle. 

La Salle intended to build a fort at a point sixty 
leagues above the mouth of the river, but his expedition 
met with disaster upon disaster, until at last he was as- 
sassinated in Texas, when setting out on foot to seek 

630 



HISTORY, THE CREOLE, AND HIS DUELS 

help from Canada. In 1699 came Iberville, the Cana- 
dian, exploring the river and fixing on the site for the 
future city. Iberville established settlements at old 
Biloxi (now Ocean Springs) and Mobile, but before he 
had time to make a town at New Orleans he caught 
yellow fever at Havana, and died there. It therefore 
remained for his brother, Bienville, actually to estab- 
lish the town, and New Orleans is Bienville's city, just 
as Detroit is Cadillac's, and Cleveland General Moses 
Cleveland's. 

Bienville's settlers were hardly pioneers from Can- 
ada, and presently we find him writing to France: 
"Send me wives for my Canadians. They are running 
in the woods after Indian girls." The priests also 
urged that unless w^hite wives could be sent out for the 
settlers, marriages with Indians be sanctioned. 

Having now a considerable investment in Louisiana, 
France felt that a request for wives for the colony was 
practical and legitimate. Louisiana must have popu- 
lation. A bonus of so much per head was offered for 
colonists, and hideous things ensued : servants, children, 
and helpless women were kidnapped, and the occupants 
of hospitals, asylums, and houses of correction were 
assembled and deported. Incidentally it will be remem- 
bered that out of these black deeds flowered "the first 
masterpiece of French literature which can properly be 
called a novel," the Abbe Prevost's "Manon Lescaut," 
which has been dramatized and redramatized, and 
which is the theme of operas by both Massenet and Puc- 

631 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

cini. Though a grave alleged to be that of Manon 
used to be shown on the outskirts of the city, there is 
doubt that such a person actually existed, although those 
who wish to believe in a flesh-and-blood Manon may per- 
haps take encouragement from the fact that the arrival 
in the colony of a Chevalier des Grieux, in the year 
1 7 19, fourteen years before the book appeared, has been 
established, and, further, that the name of the Cheva- 
lier des Grieux may be seen upon a crumbling tomb in 
one of the river parishes. 

When the girls arrived they were on inspection in the 
daytime, but at night were carefully guarded by sol- 
diers, in the house where they were quartered together. 
Miss Grace King, in her delightful book, "New Orleans, 
the Place and the People," tells us that in these times 
there were never enough girls to fill the demand for 
wives, and that in one instance two young bachelors pro- 
posed to fight over a very plain girl — the last one left 
out of a shipload — but that the commandant obliged 
them to settle their dispute by the more pacific means of 
drawing lots. As the place became settled Ursuline 
sisters arrived and established schools. And at last, a 
quarter of a century after the landing of the first ship- 
ment of girls, the curious history of female importations 
ended with the arrival of that famous band of sixty 
demoiselles of respectable family and "authenticated 
spotless reputation," who came to be taken as wives by 
only the more prosperous young colonists of the better 
class. The earlier, less reputable girls have come down 

6^2 



o 




HISTORY, THE CREOLE, AND HIS DUELS 

to us by the name of "correction girls," but these later 
arrivals — each furnished by the Company of the West 
with a casket containing a trousseau — are known to this 
day as Ics fiUcs a la cassette, or ''casket girls." 

A curious feature of this bit of history, as it applies 
to present-day New Orleans, is that though one hears 
of many families that claim descent from some nice, 
well-behaved "casket girl," one never by any chance 
hears of a family claiming to be descended from a lady 
of the other stock. When it is considered that the "cor- 
rection girls" far outnumbered their virtuous sisters of 
the casket, and ought, therefore, by the law of aver- 
ages, to have left a greater progeny, the matter becomes 
stranger still, taking on a scientific interest. The ex- 
planation must, however, be left to some mind more as- 
tute than mine — some mind capable, perhaps, of unrav- 
eling also those other riddles of New Orleans namely: 
Who was the mysterious chevalier who many years ago 
invented that most delectable of siicreries, the praline, 
and whither did he vanish ? And how, although the ref- 
ugee Due d'Orleans (later Louis Philippe of France) 
stayed but a short time in New Orleans, did he manage 
to sleep in so many hundred beds, and in houses which 
were not built until long after his departure? And why 
are so many of the signs, over bars, restaurants, and 
shops, of that blue and white enamel one associates wath 
the signs of the Western Union Telegraph Company? 
And why is the nickel as characteristic of New Orleans 
as is the silver dollar of the farther Middle West, and 

633 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

gold coin of the Pacific Slope — why, when one pays for 
a ten-cent purchase with a half-dollar, does one receive 
eight nickels in change? Ah, but New Orleans is a 
mysterious city! 

Once, when the French and English were fighting for 
the possession of Canada and New Orleans was depend- 
ing for protection on Swiss mercenaries, the French of- 
ficer in command of these troops disciplined them by 
stripping them and tying them to trees, where they were 
a prey to the terrible mosquitoes of the Gulf. One day 
they killed him and fled, but some of them were cap- 
tured. These were taken back to New Orleans, court- 
martialed, and punished according to the regulations: 
they were nailed alive to their cofiins and sawed in two. 

Ceded to Spain by a secret clause in the Treaty of 
Paris, of which she did not know until 1764, Louisiana 
could not believe the news. Even when the Acadians, 
appeared, after having been so cruelly ejected from their 
lands in what is now New Brunswick, Louisiana could 
not believe that Louis XV would coldly cast ofi: his loyal 
colony. The fact that he had done so was not credited 
until a vSpanish governor arrived. For three years 
after, there was confusion. Then a strong force was 
sent from Spain under Count O'Reilly, a man of Irish 
birth, but Spanish allegiance, and the flag of Spain was 
raised. O'Reilly maintained viceregal splendor; he in- 
vited leading citizens to a levee; here in -his own house 
he caused his soldiers to seize the group of prominent 
men who had attempted to prevent the accomplishment 

634 



HISTORY, THE CREOLE, AND HIS DUELS 

of Spanish rule, and five of these he presently caused to 
be shot as rebels. 

Spanish governors came and went. The people 
settled down. At one time Padre Antonio de Sedella, 
a Spanish Capuchin, arrived with a commission to es- 
tablish in the city the Holy office of the Inquisition, but 
he was discouraged and shipped back to Cadiz. Miss 
King tells us that when, half a century later, the cala- 
boose was demolished, secret dungeons containing in- 
struments of torture were discovered. 

On Good Friday, 1788, fire broke out, and as the. 
priests refused to let the bells be rung in warning, saying 
that all bells must be dumb on Good Friday, the confla- 
gration gained such headway that it could not be checked, 
and a large part of the old French town was reduced to 
ashes. Six years later another fire equally destructive, 
completed the work of blotting out the French town, and 
the old New Orleans we now know is the Spanish city 
which arose in its place : a city not of wood but of adobe 
or brick, stuccoed and tinted, of arcaded walks, galleries, 
jalousies, ponderovis doors, and inner courts with car- 
riage entrances from the street, and, behind, the most 
charming and secluded gardens. Also, owing to pre- 
miums offered by Baron Carondelet, the governor, tile 
roofs came into vogue, so that the city became compar- 
atively fireproof. Much of the present-day charm of 
the old city is due also to the noble Andalusian, Don 
Andreas Almonaster y Roxas, who having immigrated 
and made a great fortune in the city, became its bene- 

635 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

factor, building schools and other public institutions, the 
picturesque old Cabildo, or town hall, which is now a 
most fascinating museum, the cathedral, which adjoins 
the Cabildo, and which, like it, faces Jackson Square, 
formerly the Place d'Armes. In front of the altar of 
his cathedral Don Andreas is buried, and masses are 
said, in perpetuity, for his soul. When the Don's young 
widow remarried, she and her husband were pursued 
by a charivari lasting three days and three nights — the 
most famous charivari in the history of a city widely 
noted for these detestable functions. The Don's 
daughter, a great heiress, became the Baronne Pon- 
talba and resided in magnificence in Paris, where she 
died, a very old woman, in 1874. 

In the Place d'Armes much of the early history of 
New Orleans, and indeed, of Louisiana, was written. 
Here, and in the Cabildo, the transfers from flag to flag 
took place, ending with the ceding of Louisiana by Spain 
to France, and by France to the United States. At this 
time New Orleans had about ten thousand inhabitants, 
most of the whites being Creoles. 

Harris Dickson, who knows a great deal about New 
Orleans, declared in an article published some years ago, 
that outside lower Louisiana the word "Creole" is still 
misunderstood, and added this definition of the term: 
"A person of mixed French and Spanish blood, born in 
Louisiana." As I understand it, however, the blood 
need not necessarily be mixed, but may be pure Spanish 
or pure French, or again, there may be some admixture 

636 



HISTORY, THE CREOLE, AND HIS DUELS 

of English blood. The word itself was, I am informed, 
originally Spanish, -and signified an American descended 
from Spaniards; later it got into the language of the 
French West Indies, whence it was imported, to Louis- 
iana, about the end of the eighteenth century, by refugees 
who arrived in considerable numbers from San Do- 
mingo, after the revolution of the blacks there. Thus, 
the early French settlers did not use the word. 

If any misapprehension as to whether a Creole is a 
whit 3 person does still exist, that misunderstanding is, 
I believe, to be traced to the doors of an old-time cheap 
burlesque theater in Chicago, where the late impresario, 
Sam T. Jack, put on a show in which mulatto women 
were billed as "a galaxy of Creole beauties." This 
show traveled about the country libeling the Creoles and 
doubtless causing many persons of that class which at- 
tended Sam T. Jack's shows, to believe that "Creole" 
means something like "quadroon." But when the show 
got to Baton Rouge the manager was waited upon by a 
committee of citizens who said certain things to him 
which caused him to give up his engagement there and 
cancel any other engagements he had in the Creole 
country. 

True, one frequently hears references in New Orleans 
to "Creole mammies," and "Creole negroes," but the 
word used in that sense merely indicates a negro who 
has been the servant of Creoles, and who speaks French 
— "gombo French" the curious dialect is called. Sim- 
ilarly one hears of "Creole ponies" — these being ponies 

^17 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

of the small, strong type used by the Cajan farmers. 
According to the Louisiana dialect Longfellow's "Evan- 
geline" was a Cajan, the word being a corruption of 
"Acadian." About a thousand of these unfortunate 
expatriates arrived in New Orleans between 1765 and 
1768. Within a century they had multiplied to forty 
times that number, spreading over the entire western 
part of the State. 

Much of the temperament, the gaiety, the sensitive- 
ness of New Orleans comes from the Creole. He was 
Latin enough to be a good deal of a gambler, to love 
beautiful women, and on slight provocation to draw his 
sword. 

The street names of New Orleans — not only those of 
the French Quarter, but of the whole city — reflect his 
various tastes. Many of the streets bear the names of 
historic figures of the French and Spanish regimes; 
Rampart Street, formerly the rue des Ramparts marks, 
like the outer boulevards of Paris, the line of the old city 
wall. Other streets were given pretty feminine names 
by the old Creole gallants: Suzette, Celeste, Estelle, 
Angelie, and the like. The devout doubtless had their 
share in the naming of Religious Street, Nuns Street, 
Piety Street, Assumption Street, and Amen Street. 
The taste for Greek and Roman classicism which de- 
veloped in France at the time of the Revolution, found 
its way to Louisiana, and is reflected in New Orleans by 
streets bearing the names of gods, demi gods, the muses 
and the graces. The pronunciation given to some of 

638 



HISTORY, THE CREOLE, AND HIS DUELS 

these names is curious: Melpomene, instead of being 
given four syllables is called Melpomeen; Calliope is 
similarly Callioap; Euterpe, Euterp, and so on. This, 
however, is the result not of ignorance, but of a slight 
corruption of the correct French pronunciations, the 
Americans having taken their way of pronouncing the 
names from the French. The Napoleonic wars are 
commemorated in the names of Napoleon Avenue, and 
Austerlitz and Jena Streets, and the visit of Lafayette in 
the naming for him of both a street and an avenue. But 
perhaps the most striking names of all the old ones were 
Mystery Street, Madman's Street, Love Street (Rue de 
I'Amour), Goodchildren Street (Rue des Bons Enfants), 
and above all those two streets in the Faubourg Marigny 
which old Bernard Marigny amused himself by naming 
for two games of chance at which. It is said, he had 
lost a fortune — namely Bagatelle and Craps — the latter 
not the game played with dice, but an old-time game of 
cards. 

The French spoken by cultivated Creoles bears to the 
French of modern France about the same relation as the 
current English of Virginia does to that of England. 
Creole French is founded largely upon the French of 
the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, just as 
many of the so-called "Americanisms" of older parts of 
the country, including Virginia and New England, are 
Elizabethan. The early English and French colonists, 
coming to this country with the language of their times, 
dropped, over here, into a linguistic backwater. In the 

639 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

mother countries language continued to renew itself as 
it flowed along, by elisions, by the adoption and legiti- 
matizing of slang words (as for instance the word 
''cab," to which Dean Swift objected on the ground that 
it was slang for ''cabriolet"), and by all the other means 
through which our vocabularies are forever changing. 
But to the colonies these changes were not carried, and 
such changes as occurred in the French and English of 
America were, for the most part, separate and distinct 
(as exampled by such Creole words as "banquette" for 
"sidewalk," in place of the French word trottoir, and 
the word "baire," whence comes the American term 
"mosquito bar." The influence of colloquial French 
from Canada may also be traced in New Orleans, and 
the language there was further affected by the strange 
jargon spoken by the Creole negro — precisely as the 
English dialect of negroes in other parts of the South 
may be said to have affected the speech of all the 
Southern States. 

Between the dialect of the Louisiana Cajan and that 
of the French Canadian of Quebec and northern New 
York there is a strong resemblance ; but the Creole negro 
language is a thing entirely apart, being made up, it is 
said, partly from French and partly from African word 
sounds, just as the "gulla" of the South Carolina coast 
is made up from African and English. The one is no 
more intelligible to a Frenchman than the other to a 
Londoner. The ignorant Creole negro wishing to say 
'T do not understand," would not say "moi je ne com- 

640 



f^^^jp»-^ 




HISTORY, THE CREOLE, AND HIS DUELS 

prends pas," but "mo pas connais"; similarly for 'T am 
going away," he does not say, "je m'en vais," but "ma 
pe couri"; while for 'T have a horse," instead of "j'ai 
un cheval," he will put the statement, "me ganye choue." 
It is a dialect lacking mood, tense, and grammar. 

To this day one may occasionally see in New Orleans 
and in other lower river towns an old "mammy" wear- 
ing the bandanna headdress called a tignon, which, to- 
ward the end of the eighteenth century, was made com- 
pulsory for colored women in Louisiana. The need for 
some such distinguishing racial badge was, it is said, 
twofold. Yellow sirens from the French West Indies, 
flocking to New Orleans, were becoming exceedingly 
conspicuous in dress and adornment; furthermore one 
hears stories of wealthy white men, fathers of octoroon 
or quadroon girls, who sent these illegitimate daughters 
abroad to be educated. The latter, one learns from 
many sources, were very often beautiful in the extreme, 
as were also the Domingan girls, and history is full of 
the tales of the curious, wild, fashionably caparisoned, 
declasse circle of society, which came to exist in New 
Orleans through the presence there of so many alluring 
women of light color and equally light character. Some 
of these women, it is said, could hardly be distinguished 
from brunette whites, and it was largely for this rea- 
son that the tignon was placed by law upon the heads of 
all women having negro blood. 

No morsels from the history of old New Orleans are 
more suggestive to the imagination than the hints we get 

641 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

from many sources of wildly dissipated life centering 
around the notorious quadroon balls — or as they were 
called in their day, cordon bleu balls. An old guide book 
informs me that the women who were the great attrac- 
tion at these functions were "probably the handsomest 
race of women in the world, and were, besides, splendid 
dancers and finished dressers." Authorities seem to 
agree that these balls were exceedingly popular among 
the young Creole gentlemen, as well as with men visit- 
ing the city, and that duels, resulting from quarrels over 
the womeii, were of common occurrence. If a Creole 
had the choice of weapons slender swords called colich- 
emardes were used, whereas pistols were almost inva- 
riably selected by Americans. Duels with swords were 
often fought indoors, but when firearms were to be em- 
ployed the combatants repaired to one of the customary 
dueling grounds. Under the fine old live oaks of the 
City Park — then out in the country — it is said that as 
many as ten duels have been fought in a single day. 
Duels having their beginnings at the quadroon balls 
were, however, often fought in St. Anthony's Garden, 
for the ballroom was in a building (now occupied by a 
sisterhood of colored nuns) which stands on Orleans 
Street, near where it abuts against the Garden. This 
garden, bearing the name of the saint whose temptations 
have been of such conspicuous interest to painters of the 
nude, is not named for him so much in his own right, as 
because he was the patron of that same Padre Antonio 
de Sedella, already mentioned, who came to New Or- 

642 



HISTORY, THE CREOLE, AND HIS DUPM.S 

leans to institute the Incjuisition, but who, after having 
l)een sent away by Governor Miro, returned as a seeular 
priest and became much beloved for his good works. 
Padre Antonio lived in a hut near the garden, and it is 
he who figures in Thomas JJailey Aklrich's story "Pere 
Antoine's Date Palm." 

To the Creole, more than to any other source, may be 
traced the origin of dueling in the United States, and no 
city in the country has such a dueling history as New 
Orleans. The American took the practice from the 
Latin and by the adoption of pistols made the duel a 
much more serious thing than it had previously been, 
when swords were employed and first blood usually con- 
stituted "satisfaction." Up to the time of the Civil 
War the man who refused a challenge became a sort of 
outcast, and I have been told that even to this day a 
duel is occasionally fought. Governor Claiborne, jirst 
American governor of Louisiana, was a duelist, and his 
monument — a family monument in the annex of the old 
Basin Street division of St. Louis cemetery — bears upon 
one side an inscription in memory of his brother-in-law, 
Micajah Lewis, "who fell in a duel, January 14, 1804." 

Gayarre, in his history of Louisiana, tells a story of 
six young French noblemen who, one night, paired off 
and fought for no reason whatever save out of bravado. 
Two of them were killed. 

Two famous characters of New Orleans, about the 
middle of the last century, were Major Joe Howell, a 
brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis, and Major Henry, a 

643 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

dare-devil soldier of fortune who had filibustered in 
Nicaragua and fought in the Mexican War. One day 
while drinking together they quarreled, and as a result 
a duel was arranged to take place the same afternoon. 
Henry kept on drinking, but Howell went to sleep and 
slept until it was time to go to the dueling ground, when 
he took one cocktail, and departed. 

Feeling that a duel over a disagreement the occasion 
for which neither contestant could remember, was the 
height of folly, friends intervened, and finally succeeded 
in getting Major Henry to say that the fight could be 
called off if Howell would apologize. 

"For what?" he was asked. 

''Don't know and don't care," returned the old war- 
rior. 

As Howell would not apologize, navy revolvers were 
produced and the two faced each other, the understand- 
ing being that they should begin at ten paces with six 
barrels loaded, firing at will and advancing. At the 
word "Fire!" both shot and missed, but Howell cocked 
his revolver with his right thumb and fired again im- 
mediately, wounding Henry in the arm. Henry then 
fired and missed a second time, while Howell's third shot 
struck his antagonist in the abdomen. Wounded as he 
was, Henry managed to fire again, narrowly missing the 
other, who was not only a giant in size, but was a con- 
spicuous mark, owing to the white clothing which he 
wore. At this Howell advanced a step and took steady 
aim, and he would almost certainly have killed his op- 

644 



HISTORY, THE CREOLE, AND HIS DUELS 

ponent had not his own second reached out and thrown 
his pistol up, sending- the shot wild. This occurred 
after the other side has cried "Stop!" — as it had been 
agreed should be done in case either man was badly 
wounded. A foul was consequently claimed, the sec- 
onds drew their pistols, and a general battle was nar- 
rowly averted. After many weeks Henry recovered. 

A great number of historic duels were over politics. 
Such a one was the fight which took place in 1843, ^^^" 
tween Mr. Hueston, editor of the Baton Rouge "Ga- 
zette" and Mr. Alcee La Branche, a Creole gentleman 
who had been speaker of the Louisiana House of Rep- 
resentatives, and was running for Congress. Mr. La 
Branche was one of the few public men in the State 
who had never fought a duel, and in the course of a vio- 
lent political campaign, Hueston twitted him on this sub- 
ject in the columns of the "Gazette," trying to make him 
out a coward. Soon after the insulting article ap- 
peared, the two men met in the billiard room of the old 
St. Charles Hotel, and when La Branche demanded an 
apology, and was refused, he struck Hueston with a 
cane, or a cue, and knocked him down. A duel was, of 
course, arranged, the weapons selected being double- 
barreled shotguns loaded with ball. At the first dis- 
charge Hueston's hat and coat were punctured by bul- 
lets. He demanded a second exchange of shots, which 
resulted about as before — his own shots going wild, 
while those of his opponent narrowly missed him. 
Hueston, however, obstinately insisted that the duel be 

645 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

continued, and the guns were loaded for the third time. 
In the next discharge the editor received a scalp wound. 
It was now agreed by all present that matters had gone 
far enough, but Hueston remained obdurate in his inten- 
tion to kill or be killed, and in the face of violent pro- 
tests, demanded that the guns again be loaded. The 
next exchange of shots proved to be the last. Hueston 
let both barrels go without effect, and fell to the ground 
shot through the lungs. Taken to the Maison de Sante, 
he was in such agony that he begged a friend to finish 
the work by shooting him through the head. Within 
a few hours he was dead. 

The old guide book from which I gather these items 
cites, also, cases in which duels w^ere fought over trivial 
matters, such, for instance, as a mildly hostile news- 
paper criticism of an operatic performance, and an ar- 
gument between a Creole and a Frenchman over the 
greatness of the Mississippi River. 

Professor Brander Matthews tells me of an episode in 
which the wit exhibited by a Creole lawyer, in the course 
of a case in a New Orleans court, caused him to be chal- 
lenged. The opposing counsel, likewise a Creole, was 
a great dandy. He appeared in an immaculate white 
suit and boiled shirt, but the weather was warm, and 
after he had spoken for perhaps half an hour his shirt 
was wilted, and he asked an adjournment. The ad- 
journment over, he reappeared in a fresh shirt, but this 
too wilted presently, whereupon another adjournment 
was taken. At the end of this he again reappeared 

• 646 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

wearing a third fresh shirt, and in it managed to com- 
plete his plea. 

It now became the other lawyer's turn. Jle arose 
and, speaking with the utmost gravity, addressed the 
jury. 

''Gentlemen," he said (Professor Matthews tells it in 
French), *T shall divide my speech into three shirts." 
He then announced: "First shirt" — and made his first 
point. This accomplished, he paused briefly, then pro- 
claimed: ''Second shirt," and followed with his second 
point. Then: "Third and last shirt," and after com- 
pleting his argument sat down. The delighted jury 
gave him the verdict, but his witticism involved him in 
a duel with the worsted advocate. The result of this 
duel Professor Matthews does not tell, but if the wag's 
colichemardc was as swift and penetrating as his wit, 
we may surmise that his opponent of the Code Napoleon 
and the code duello had a fourth shirt spoiled. 



647 



CHAPTER LVIII 
FROM ANTIQUES TO PIRATES 

THE numerous antique shops of the French quar- 
ter, with their gray, undulating floors and their 
piled-up, dusty Htter of old furniture, plate, 
glass, and china, and the equally numerous old book 
stores, with their piles of French publications, their 
shadowy corners, their pleasant ancient bindings and 
their stale smell, are peculiarly reminiscent of similar 
establishments 'in Paris. 

That Eugene Field knew these shops well we have rea- 
son to know by at least two of his poems. In one, 'The 
Discreet Collector," he tells us that: 

Down south there is a curio shop 

Unknown to many men ; 

Thereat do I intend to stop 

When I am South again ; 

The narrow street through which to go — 

Aha! I know it well! 

And maybe you would like to know — 

But no — I will not tell! 

But later, when filled with remorse over his extrava- 
gance in "blowing twenty dollars in by nine o'clock a. 
M.," he reveals the location of his favorite establish- 
ment, saying: 

648 



FROM ANTIQUES TO PIRATES 

In Royal Street (near Conti) there's a lovely curio shop, 
And there, one balmy fateful morn, it was may chance to stoj) — 

So that, at least, is the neighborhood in which he 
learned that : 

The curio collector is so blindly lost in sin 

That he does n't spend his money — he simply blows it in ! 

In his verses called ''Doctor Sam," Field touched on 
another fascinating side of Creole negro life: the mys- 
terious beliefs and rites of voodooism — or, as it is more 
often spelled, voudouism. 

Until a few years ago it used to be possible for a vis- 
itor with a ''pull" in New Orleans to see some of the 
voudou performances and to have "a work made" for 
him, but the police have dealt so severely with those who 
believe in this barbarous nonsense, that it is practised in 
these times only with the utmost secrecy. 

Voudouism was brought by the early slaves from the 
Congo, but in Louisiana the negroes — probably desiring 
to imitate the religion of their white masters — appro- 
priated some of the Roman Catholic saints and made 
them subject to the Great Serpent, or Grand Zombi, who 
is the voudou god. These saints, however, are given 
voudou names, St. Michael, for example, being Blanc 
Dani, and St. Peter, Papa Liha. This, situation is the 
antithesis of that to be found in Brittany, where Druidi- 
cal beliefs, handed down for generations among the 
peasants, may now be faintly traced running like on odd 
alien threads through the strong fabric of Roman Cath- 
olicism. 

649 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

Voudouism is not, however, to be dignified by the 
name "rehgion." It is superstition founded upon 
charms and hoodoos. It is witchcraft of the maddest 
kind, involving the most hideous performances. More- 
over, it is said that a hoodoo is something of which a 
French negro is very much afraid, and that his fear is 
justifiable, for the reason that the throwing of a wanga, 
or curse, may also involve the administering of subtle 
poisons made from herbs. 

Legend is rich with stories of Marie Le Veau, the 
voudou queen, who lived long ago in New Orleans, and 
of love and death accomplished by means of voudou 
charms. Charms are brought about in various ways. 
Among these the burning of black candles, accompanied 
by certain performances, brings evil upon those against 
whom a "work" is made, while blue candles have to do 
with love charms. It may also be noted that "love 
powders" can be purchased now-a-days in drug stores 
in New Orleans. 

In the days of long ago the great negro gathering 
place used to be Congo Square — now Beauregard 
Square — and here, on Sunday nights, wild dances used 
to occur — the "bamboula" and "calinda" — and sinister 
spells were cast. Later the voudous went to more se- 
cluded spots on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, and 
on St. John's Eve, which is their great occasion, many 
of the whites of the city used to go to the lake in hopes 
of discovering a voudou seance, and being allowed to 
see it. A friend of mine, who has seen several of these 

650 



FROM ANTIQUES TO PIRATES 

seances, says that they are unbeHevably weird and hor- 
rible. They will make a gombo, put a snake in it, and 
then devour it, and they will wring a cat's neck and drink 
its blood. And of course, along with these loathsome 
ceremonies, go incantations, chants, dances, and frenzies, 
sometimes ending in catalepsis. 

There are weird stories of white women of good fam- 
ily who have believed in voudou, and have taken part in 
the rites ; and there are other tales of evil spells, such as 
that of the Creole bride of long ago, whose affianced had 
been the lover of a quadroon girl, a hairdresser. The 
hairdresser when she came to do the bride's hair for the 
wedding, gave her a bouquet of flowers. The bride 
smelled the bouquet — and died at the church door. 

It was, I think, in an old book store on Royal Street — 
or else on Chartres — that I found the tattered guide 
book to which I referred in an earlier chapter. It was 
''edited and compiled by several leading writers of the 
New Orleans Press," and published in 1885, and it con- 
tains an introductory recommendation by George W. 
Cable — which is about the finest guarantee that a book 
on New Orleans can have. 

Mr. Cable, of course, more than all the rest of the peo- 
ple who have written of New Orleans put together, 
placed the city definitely in Hterature. And it is inter- 
esting, if somewhat saddening, to recall that for lifting 
the city into the world of belles lettres, for adorning it 
and preserving it in such volumes as "Old Creole Days/' 
'The Grandissimes," "Madame Delphine," and other 

651 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

valuable, truthful, and charming works, he was roundly 
abused by his own fellow-townsmen. Far from attack- 
ing Mr. Cable, New Orleans ought to build him a monu- 
ment, and I am glad to say that, though the monument Is 
not there yet, the city does seem to have come to its 
senses, and that the prophet is no longer without honor 
in his own country. 

Some further leaves are added to the literary laurels 
of the city by what Thomas Bailey Aldrich has written 
of it, and the wreath is made the greater by the fact that 
in New Orleans was born "the only literary man in New 
York," Professor Brander Matthews. 

Another distinguished name in letters, connected with 
the place, is that of Lafcadio Hearn, who was at one 
time a reporter on a New Orleans newspaper, and who 
not only wrote about the French quarter, but collected 
many proverbs of the Creoles in a book which he called 
''Gombo Zebes:" In his little volume, "Chita," Hearn 
described the land of lakes, bayous, and chenieres, which 
forms a strip between the city and the Gulf, and which, 
with its wild birds, wild scenery, and wild storms, and its 
extraordinary population of hunters and fishermen — 
Cajuns, Italians, Japanese, Spanish, Kanakas, Filipinos, 
French, and half-breed Indians, all intermarrying — is 
the strangest, most outlandish section of this country 
I have ever visited. The Filipinos, who introduced 
shrimp fishing in this region, building villages on stilts, 
like those of their own islands, were not there when 
Hearn wrote "Chita," nor was Ludwig raising diamond- 

652 



FROM ANTIQUES TO PIRATES 

back terrapin on Grand Isle, but the live-oaks, draped 
with sad Spanish moss, lined the bayous as they do to- 
day, and the alligators, turtles and snakes were there, 
and the tall marsh grass, so like bamboo, fringed the 
banks as it does now, and water hyacinth carpeted the 
pools, and the savage tropical storms came sweeping in, 
now and then, from the Gulf, flooding the entire coun- 
try, tearing everything up by the roots, then receding, 
carrying the floating debris back with them to the salt 
sea. One has to see what they call a ''slight" storm, in 
that country, to know what a great storm there must be. 
Hearn surely saw storms there, for in ''Chita" he 
describes with terrifying vividness that historic tempest 
which, in 1856, obliterated, at one stroke, Last Island, 
with its fashionable hotel and all the guests of that hotel. 
I have seen a "little" thunderstorm in Barataria Bay 
and I do not want to see a big one. I have seen brown 
men who, in the storm of 191 5 (which did a million dol- 
lars' worth of damage in New Orleans), floated about 
the Baratarias for days, upon the roofs of houses, and I 
have seen little children, half Italian, half Filipino, who 
were saved by being carried by their parents into the 
branches of an old live-oak, where they waited until good 
Horace Harvey, "the little father of the Baratarias," 
came down there in his motor yacht, the Destrchan, 
rescued them, warmed them, fed them, and gave them 
back to life. I was told in New Orleans that there were 
ten seconds in that storm when the wind reached a ve- 
locity of 140 miles per hour at the mouth of the Missis- 

653 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

sippi, that it blew for four hours at the rate of 90 miles, 
and that the lowest barometrical reading ever recorded 
in the United States (28.11) was recorded in New Or- 
leans during- this hurricane. 

Of the summer climate of New Orleans I know noth- 
ing at first hand, and judging from what people have 
told me, that is all I want to know. The winter climate 
suited me very well while I was there, although the boast 
that grass is green and roses bloom all the year round, 
does not imply such intense heat as some people may 
suppose. Furthermore, I believe that the thermometer 
has once or twice in the history of the city dropped low 
enough to kill any ordinary rose, for a friend of mine 
told me a story about some water pipes that froze and 
burst during an unprecedented cold snap which occurred 
some years ago. He said that an English colonel, whom 
he knew, was visiting the city at the time and that, find- 
ing himself unable to get water in his bathtub, he sent out 
for several cases of Apollinaris, and with true British 
phlegm proceeded to empty them into the tub and get 
in among the bubbles. 

Still another figure having to do with literature, and 
also with the history of New Orleans, is Jean Lafitte, 
known as a pirate, whose life is said to have inspired 
Byron's poem, "The Corsair." There was a time, long 
ago, when Eafitte, together with his brother, his 
doughty lieutenant, Dominique You, and his rabble of 
Baratarians, caused New Orleans a great deal of an- 
noyance, but like many other doubtful characters, they 

654 



FROM ANTIQUES TO PIRATES 
have, since their death, become entirely picturesque, and 
the very idea that Lafitte was not a first-class blood-and- 
thunder pirate is as distasteful to the people of New Or- 
leans to-day, as his being any kind of a near-pirate at 
all, used to be to their ancestors. Nevertheless Frank 
R. Stockton, who made a great specialty of pirates, says 
of Lafitte: ''He never committed an act of piracy in 
his life; he was [before he went to Barataria] a black- 
smith, and knew no more about sailing a ship or even 
the smallest kind of a boat than he knew about the 
proper construction of a sonnet. ... It is said of him 
that he was never at sea but twice in his life: once when 
he came from France, and once when he left this coun- 
try, and on neither occasion did he sail under the Jolly 
Roger. According to Stockton, Lafitte, when he gave 
up his blacksmith shop (in which he is said to have made 
some of the fine wrought iron balcony railings which 
still adorn the old town), and went to Barataria, be- 
came nothing more nor less than a ''fence" for pirates 
and privateers, taking their booty, smuggling it up to 
New Orleans, and selling it there on commission. 

But if the fact that he was not a gory-handed free- 
booter is against Lafitte, there is one great thing in 
his favor. When the British were making ready to 
attack New Orleans in 1814, they tried both to bribe and 
to browbeat Lafitte into joining forces with them. As 
the American government was planning, at this very 
time, a punitive expedition against him, it would per- 
haps have seemed good policy for the pseudo-pirate to 

655 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

have accepted the British offer, but what Lafltte did was 
to go up and report the matter at New Orleans, giving 
the city the first authentic information of the contem- 
plated attack, and offering to join with his men in the 
defense, in exchange for amnesty. 

A good many people, however, did not believe his 
story, and a good many others thought it beneath the 
dignity of the government to treat with a man of his 
dubious occupation. Therefore poor Lafitte was not 
listened to, but, upon the contrary, only succeeded in 
stirring up trouble for himself, for an expedition was 
immediately sent against him; his settlement at Bara- 
taria — on the gulf, about forty miles below the city — 
was demolished and the inhabitants driven to the woods 
and swamps. 

But in spite of this discouraging experience, Lafitte 
would not join the British, and it came about that when 
the Battle of New Orleans was about to be fought, 
Andrew Jackson, who had a short time before referred 
to Lafitte and his men as a band of "hellish banditti," 
was glad to accept their aid. Dominique You — with 
his fine pirate name — commanded a gun, and the others 
fought according to the best piratical tradition. After 
the battle was won, the Baratarians were pardoned by 
President Madison. Incidentally it may be remarked 
here that the American line of defense on the plains of 
Chalmette, below the city, had been indicated some years 
before by the French General Moreau, hero of Hohen- 

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FROM ANTIQUES TO PIRATES 

linden, as the proper strategic position for safeguarding 
New Orleans on the south. 

Even after he had been pardoned, Lafitte felt, not 
without some justice, that he had been ill-used by the 
Americans, and because of this he determined to leave 
the country. He set sail with a band of his followers 
for other climes, but what became of them is not known. 
Some think their ship went down in a storm which 
crossed the Gulf soon after their departure; others be- 
lieve that they reached Yucatan, and that Lafitte died 
there. Whatever his fate, he did not improve it by 
departing from New Orleans, for had he not done so 
he would, at the end, have been given a handsome burial 
and a nice monument like that of Dominique You— 
which may be seen to this day in the old cemetery on 
Claiborne Avenue, between Iberville and St. Louis 
Streets. 

Having disposed of literary men and pirates, we now 
come in logical sequence to composers and actors. Be 
it known, then, that E. H. Sothern first raised, in the 
house at 79 Bienville Street, the voice which has 
charmed us in the theater, and that Louis Gottschalk, 
composer of the almost too well-know "Last Hope," was 
also born in New Orleans. 

The records of the opera and the theater might, in 
themselves, make a chapter. As early as 1791 a French 
theatrical company played in New Orleans, using halls, 
and in 1808 a theater was built in St. Philip Street. It 

657 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

is said that the first play given in the city in EngHsh was 
performed December 24, 181 7, the play being "The 
Honey Moon," and the manager Noah M. Ludlow ; but 
it was not until some years later that the English drama 
became a feature of the city's life, with the establish- 
ment of a stock company under the management of 
James H. Caldwell. Edwin Forrest appeared, in 1824, 
with Mr. Caldwell's company at the Camp Street Thea- 
ter, which he built on leaving the Orleans Theater. The 
former was, when opened, out in the swamp, and peo- 
ple had to walk to it from Canal Street on a narrow path 
of planks. It was the first building in the city to be 
lighted by gas. 

The annals of the old St. Charles theater, called "old 
Drury," are rich with history. Practically all our 
great players from 1835 until long after the Civil War, 
appeared in this theater, and an old prompter's book 
which, I believe, is still in existence, records, among 
many other things, certain details of the appearance 
there, in 1852, of Junius Brutus Booth, father of Edwin 
Booth, and mentions also that Joseph Jefferson (Sr. ) 
then a young man, was reprimanded for being noisy in 
his dressing-room. 

New Orleans was, I believe, the first American city 
regularly to support grand opera and to give it a home. 
For a great many years before 1859 (in which year 
the present French Opera House on Bourbon Street was 
built) there was a regular annual season of opera at 
the Orleans Theater, long since destroyed. 

658 



FROM ANTIQUES TO PIRATES 

In the days of the city's operatic grandeur great sing- 
ers used to visit New Orleans before visiting New York, 
as witness, for example, the debut at the French Opera 
House of Adelina Patti. Since the time of the Civil 
War, however, the city has suffered a decline in this 
department of art. Opera seasons have not been regu- 
lar, and in spite of occasional attempts to revive the 
old-time spirit, the ancient Opera House, wdth its brave 
columned front, its cracking veneer of stucco, and its 
surrounding of little vari-colored one story cafes and 
shops (which are themselves like bits of operatic scen- 
ery), does not so much suggest to the imagination a 
home of modern opera, as a mournful mortuary chapel 
haunted by the ghosts of old half-forgotten composers : 
Herold, Spontini, Mehul, Varney; old conductors, long 
since gone to dust : Prevost, John, Calabresi ; old arias 
of Meyerbeer, Auber, and Donizetti; and above all, by 
the ghosts of pretty pirouetting ballerinas, and of great 
singers whose voices have, these many years, been still. 

An old lady who knew Louisiana in the forties and 
fifties, has left record of the fact that plantation negroes 
used to know and sing the French operatic airs, just as 
the Italian peasants of to-day know and sing the music 
of Puccini and Leoncavallo. But if opera no longer 
reaches the negro, it cannot be said that it has failed to 
leave its stamp on the French quarter. From open win- 
dows and doors, from little shops and half-hidden court- 
yards, from shuttered second story galleries, there comes 
floating to the ears of the wayfarer the sound of music. 

659 / 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

In one house a piano is being played with dash; in an- 
other a child is practising her scales ; from still another 
comes a soprano voice, the sad whistling of a flute, the 
tinkle of a guitar, or the anguished squeal of a tortured 
violin. Never except in Naples have I heard, on one 
block, so many musical instruments independently at 
work, as in some single blocks of the vieux carve; and 
never anywhere have I seen a sign which struck as more 
expressive of the industries of a locality, than that one 
which I saw near the house of Mme. Lalurie, which 
read: "Odd Jobs Done, and Music." 

The reason for this musical congestion is twofold. 
Not only is the Creole a great lover of good light music, 
but the whole region for blocks about the Opera House 
is populated by old musicians from the opera's orches- 
tra, and women, some middle aged, some old, who used 
to be in the ballet or the chorus, and who not only keep 
alive the musical tradition of the district, but pass it on 
to the younger generation. Indeed there are almost as 
many places in the French quarter where music may be 
heard, as where stories are told. 

In one street may be seen a house where the troubles 
with the Mafia began. On a corner — the southeast 
corner of Royal and St. Peter — is shown the house in 
which Cable's " 'Sieur George" resided. This house is, 
I believe, the same one which, when erected, caused peo- 
ple to move away from its immediate neighborhood, for 
fear that its height would cause it to fall down. It 
is a four story house — the first built in the city. At the 

660 



FROM ANTIQUES TO PIRATES 

southeast corner of Royal and Hospital Streets stands 
that "haunted" house of Mme. Lalaurie, who fled the 
town when indignation was aroused because of devil- 
ish tortures she inflicted on her slaves. This house is 
now an Italian tenement, but even in its decay it will be 
recognized as a mansion which, in its day, was fit to 
house such guests as Louis Philippe, Lafayette, and Ney. 
A guest even more distinguished than these, was to have 
been housed in the mansion at the northeast corner of 
St. Louis and Chartres Streets, for the Creoles had a 
plan to rescue Napoleon from St. Helena and bring him 
here, and had this house prepared to receive him. 

And are w^e to forget where Andrew Jackson was en- 
tertained before and after the Battle of New Orleans — 
where General Beauregard, military idol of the Creoles, 
resided — where Paul Morphy the ''chess king" lived — 
where General Butler took up his quarters when, in 
1862, under the guns of Farragut's fleet, the city sur- 
rendered — ? Shall we fail to visit the curious old tene- 
ments and stables surrounding the barnyard which once 
was the remise of the old Orleans Hotel? Shall w^e 
neglect old Metaire cemetery, with its graves built above 
ground in the days when drainage was less perfect? 
Shall we fail to go to the levee (pronounced "levvy") 
and see the savage flood of the muddy Mississippi cours- 
ing toward the gulf behind the embankment which alone 
saves the city from inundation? Shall we ignore the 
French Market with its clean stalls piled with fresh 
vegetables, sea food, and all manner of comestibles, in- 

661 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

eluding Ule for the glorious Creole gombo. Shall we 
not view the picturesque if sinister old Absinthe House, 
dating from 1799, with its court and stairway so full 
of mysterious suggestion, and its misty paregoric- 
flavored beverage, containing opalescent dreams ? Shall 
we not go to Sazerac's for a cocktail, or to Ramos' for 
one of those delectable gin-fizzes suggesting an Olym- 
pian soda-fountain drink? Are we. to ignore all these 
wonders of the city? 

Yes, for it is time to go to luncheon at Antoine's! 



662 



CHAPTER LIX 
ANTOINE'S AND MARDI GRAS 

ANTOINE'S is to nie one of the four or five most 
satisfactory restaurants in the United States, — 
two of the others being the Louisiane and Gala- 
toire's. But one has one's shght preferences in these 
things ; and just as I have a feeling that the cuisine of the 
Hotel St. Regis in 'New York surpasses, just a little bit, 
that of any other eating place in the city, I have a feeling 
about Antoine's in New Orleans. This is not, perhaps, 
with me, altogether a culinary matter, for whereas I 
remember delightful meals at the Louisiane and Gala- 
toire's — meals which, indeed, could hardly be surpassed 
— I lived for a week at Antoine's, and felt at home there, 
and became peculiarly attached to the quaint, rambling 
old restaurant, up stairs and down. 

Antoine's has never been "fixed up." The cafe makes 
one think of such old Parisian restaurants as the Boeuf 
a la Mode, or the Tour d' Argent. Far from being a 
showy place, it is utterly simple in its decorations and 
equipment, but if there is in this country a restaurant 
more French than Antoine's, I do not know where that 
restaurant is. 

Antoine Alciatore, founder of the establishment, de- 

663 



A^IERICAN ADVENTURES 

parted nearly forty years ago to the realms to which 
great chefs are ultimately taken. Coming from France 
as a young man he established himself in a small cafe 
opposite the slave market, where he proceeded to cook 
and let his cooking speak for him. His dinde a la Talley- 
rand soon made him famous, and he prospered, moving 
before long to the present building. His sons. Jules and 
Fernand, were sent to Paris to learn at headquarters the 
best traditions of the haute cuisine, doing service as 
apprentices in such establishments as the ]Maison d'Or 
and Brabant's. Jules is now proprietor of Antoine's, 
while Fernand is master of the Louisiane. 

The two brothers are of somewhat different type. 
Fernand is, above all, a chef; I have never seen him out- 
side his own kitchen. His son, Fernand Jr., superin- 
tends the front part of the Louisiane, which he has 
transformed into a place having the appearance of a 
Xew York restaurant. The vouns: man has made a 
successful bid for the fashionable patronage of Xew 
Orleans, and there is dancing in the Louisiane in the 
evening. Jules, upon the other hand, is perhaps more 
the director than his brother Fernand — more the suave 
delightful host, less the man of cap and apron. Jules 
loves to give parties — to astonish his guests with a bril- 
liant dinner and with his unrivaled grace as gerant. 
That he is able to do these things no one is better aware 
than my companion and I, for it was our good fortune 
to be accepted by Jules as friends and fellow artists. 

Never while my companion and I lived at Antoine's 

664 



•-t 
O 




ANTOINE'S AND MARDI GRAS 

did we escape the feeling that we were not in the United 
States, but in some foreign land. To go to his rooms 
he went upstairs, around a corner, down a few steps, 
past a pantry, and a back stairway by which savory 
smells ascended from the kitchen, along a latticed gal- 
lery overlooking a courtyard like that of some inn in 
Segovia, along another gallery running at right angles 
to the first and overlooking the same court, including 
the kitchen door and the laundry, and finally to a cham- 
ber with French doors, a canopied bed, and French win- 
dows opening upon a balcony that overlooked the side 
street. His room was called "The Creole Yacht," while 
mine was the "Maison Vert." 

I remember a room in that curious little hotel opposite 
the Cafe du Dome, in Paris (the hotel in which it is said 
Whistler stayed when he was a student), which almost 
exactly resembled my room at Antoine's, even to the 
dust which was under the bed — until 'Genie got to work 
with broom and brush. Moreover, connected with my 
room there was a bath which actually had a chaufbain 
to heat the water: one of those weird French machines 
resembling the engine of a steam launch, which pops 
savagely when you light the gas beneath it, and which, 
as you are always expecting it to blow up and destroy 
you, converts the morning ablutions from a perfunctory 
duty into a great adventure. 

Then too, there was Marie who has attended to the 
linge at Antoine's for the last fifty years, and who helped 
the gray-haired genial Eugenie to "make proper the 

665 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

rooms." Ever since 'Genie — as she is called, for short 
— came from her native Midi, she has been at Antoine's ; 
and like Erangois — the gentle, kindly, white-mustached 
old waiter who, when we were there, had just moved up 
to Antoine's after thirty-live years' service at the Louis- 
iane — 'Genie is always ready with a smile ; yes, even in 
the rush of Mardi Gras! 

Antoine's does not set up to be a regular hotel, and we 
stopped there because, during the carnival, all rooms in 
the large modern hotels across Canal Street were taken. 
The carnival rush made room-service at Antoine's a lit- 
tle slow, now and then; sometimes the bell would not be 
answered when we rang for breakfast; or again, our 
morning coifee and croissants would be forty minutes 
on the way; sometimes we became a little bit impatient 
— though we could never bring ourselves to say so to 
such amiable servitors. As a result, when we were leav- 
ino- the city for a little trip, we determined to stay, on 
our return, at the Grunewald, a hotel like any one of a 
hundred others in the United States — marble lobbies, 
gold ceilings, rathskellers, cabaret shows, dancing, and 
page boys wandering through the corridors and dining- 
rooms, calling in nasal, sing-song voices: "Mis-ttv 
Shoss-ii\ii\ MzVter ^/iw-kaplopps! Mw-ter Praggle- 
fiss ! Mis-itY Blahms !" 

We did return and go to the Grunewald. But com- 
fortable as we were made there, we had to own to each 
other that we missed Antoine's. We missed our curious 
old rooms. I even missed my chaufhain, and was bored 

666 



ANTOINE'S AND MARDI GRAS 

at the commonplace matutinal performance of turning 
on hot water without preliminary experiments in marine 
engineering. We thought wistfully of 'Genie's patient 
smile, and of her daily assurance to us, when we went 
out, that "when she had made the apartments she 
would render the key to the bureau, dors," — which is to 
say, leave the key at the office. We yearned for the 
cafe, for good Francois, for the deliciously flavored oys- 
ters cooked on the half-shell and served on a pan of hot 
rock-salt which kept them warm ; for the cold tomatoes 
a la Jules Cesar; for the bisque of crayfish a la Cardinal; 
for the bouillibasse (which Thackeray admitted was as 
good in New Orleans as in Marseilles, and which Otis 
Skinner says is better); for the unrivaled gombo a la 
Creole, and pompano en Papillotte, and pressed duck a 
la Tour d' Argent, and orange Brulot, and the wonderful 
Cafe Brulot Diabolique — that spiced coffee made in a 
silver bowl from which emerge the blue flames of burn- 
ing cognac, and in honor of which the lights of the cafe 
are always temporarily dimmed. 

Nor least of all was it that we wished to see asfain the 
mother of Jules, who sits back of the caisse and takes in 
the money, like many another good French wife and 
mother — a tiny little old lady more than ninety-five 
years old, who came to New Orleans in 1840 as the bride 
of the then young Antoine Alciatore. 

So we put on our hats and coats when evening came, 
and went back to Antoine's for dinner, and as long as 
we were in New Orleans we kept on going back. 

667 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

That is not to say, of course, that we did not go also 
to the Louisiane and Galatoire's, or that we did not drop 
in for hmcheon, sometimes, at Brasco's, in Gravier 
Street, or at Kolb's, a more or less conventional German 
restaurant in St. Charles Street ; or that we failed to go 
out to Tranchina's at Spanish Fort, on Lake Pontchar- 
train, or to the quainter little place called Noy's where, we 
learned, Ernest Peixotto had been but a short time be- 
fore, gathering material for indigestion and an article 
in "Scribner's Magazine." But when all is said and 
done there remain the three restaurants of the old quar- 
ter. 

I should like to give some history of Galatoire's as 
well as of the other two, but when I asked the patron for 
the story of his restaurant, he smiled, and with a shrug- 
replied: "But Monsieur, the story is in the food!" 

Do not expect any of these places to present the bril- 
liant appearance of distinguished New York restau- 
rants. They are comparatively simple, all of them, and 
are engaged not with soft carpets and gilt ceilings, but 
with the art of cookery. 

I have been told that some of them have what may be 
termed "tourist cooking," which is not their best, but if 
you know good food, and let them know you know it, and 
if you visit them at any time except during the carnival, 
then you have a right to expect in any one of these es- 
tablishments, a superb dinner. For as I once heard my 
friend Col. Beverly Myles, one of the city's most dis- 
tinguished gourmets, remark: "To talk of 'tolerably 

668 



ANTOINE'S AND MARDl GRAS 

good food' in a French restaurant is like talking of 'a 
tolerably honest man.' " 

The carnival of Mardi Gras and the several days pre- 
ceding, is one of those things about which I feel as I d(j 
concerning Niagara Falls, and gambling houses, and 
the red light district of Butte, Montana, and the under- 
ground levels of a mine, and the world as seen from an 
aeroplane, and the Quatres Arts ball, and a bull fight — 
I am glad to have seen it once, but I have no desire to 
see it again. During the carnival my companion and 
I enjoyed a period of sleepless gaiety. To be sure, we 
went to bed every morning, but what is the use in doing 
that if you also get up every morning? We went to the 
street pageants, we went to the balls at the French 
Opera House, we saw the masking on the streets, 
and when the carnival was finished we were finished, 
too. 

The great thing about the carnival, it seems to me, is 
that is bears the relation to the life of the city, that a 
well-developed hobby does to the life of an individual. 
It keeps the city young. It keeps it from becoming- 
pompous, from taking itself too seriously, from getting 
into a rut. It stimulates not alone the voune, but the 
grave and reverend seigniors also, to give themselves 
up for a little while each year to play, and moreover to 
use their imaginations in annually devising new pageants 
and costumes. From this point of view such a carnival 
would be a good thing for any city. 

But that is where the Latin spirit of New Orleans 

669 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

comes in, with its pleasing combination of gaiety and 
restraint. You could not hold such a carnival in every 
city. You could not do it in New York. For more im- 
portant even that the pageants and the balls, is the car- 
nival frame of mind. To hold a carnival such as New 
Orleans holds, a city must know how to be lively and 
playful without becoming drunk, without breaking bar- 
room mirrors, upsetting tables, annoying women, thrust- 
ing ''ticklers" into people's faces, jostling, fighting, com- 
mitting the thousand rough vulgar excesses in which 
New York indulges every New Year's Eve, and in which 
it would indulge to an even more disgusting extent un- 
der the additional license of the mask. 

The carnival — came vale, farewell flesh — which ter- 
minates with Mardi Gras — "Fat Tuesday," or Shrove 
Tuesday, the day before the beginning of Lent — comes 
down to us from pagan times by way of the Latin coun- 
tries. The ''Cowbellions," a secret organization of Mo- 
bile, in 1 83 1 elaborated the idea of historical and legen- 
dary processions, and as early as 1837 New Orleans held 
grotesque street parades. Twenty years later the 
"Mystic Krewe," now known as "Comus," appeared 
from nowhere and disappeared again. The success of 
Comus encouraged the formation of other secret socie- 
ties, each having its own parade and ball, and in 1872, 
Rex, King of the Carnival, entered his royal capital of 
New Orleans in honor of the visit of the Grand Duke 
Alexis — who, 1w the way, is one of countless notables 
who have feasted at Antoine's. 

670 



ANTOINE'S AND MARDI GRAS 

The three leading carnival societies, Comus, Momus, 
and Proteus, are understood to be connected with three 
of the city's four leading clubs, all of which stand within 
easy range of one another on the uptown side of Canal 
Street: the Boston Club (taking its name from an old 
card game) ; the Pickwick (named for Dickens' genial 
gentleman, a statue of whom stands in the lobby) ; the 
Louisiana, a young men's club ; and the Chess, Checkers 
and Whist Club. The latter association is, I believe, the 
one that takes no part in the carnival. 

Each of the carnival organizations has its own King 
and Queen, and the connection between certain chiles 
and certain carnival societies may be guessed from 
the fact that the Comus Queen and Proteus Queen 
always appear on the stand in front of the Pickwick 
Club, to witness their respective parades, and that 
the Queen of the entire Carnival appears with her 
maids of honor on the stand before the Boston Club 
upon the day of Mardi Gras, to witness the triumphal 
entry and parade of Rex. As Rex passes the club he 
sends her a bouquet — the official indication of her queen- 
ship. That night she appears for the first time in the 
glory of her royal robes at the Rex Ball, which is held 
in a large hall; and the great event of the carnival, from 
a social standpoint, is the official visit, on the same night, 
of Rex and his Queen, attended by their court, to 
the King and Queen of Comus. at the Comus Ball, held 
in the Opera House. 

Passing between the brilliantly illuminated flag- 

671 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

draped buildings, under festoons of colored electric 
lights, the street parades, with their spectacular colored 
floats, their bands, their negro torch-bearers, their 
strangely costumed masked figures, throwing favors 
into the dense crowds, are glorious sights for children 
ranging anywhere from eight to eighty years of age. 
Public masking on the streets, on the day of Mardi Gras, 
is also an amusing feature of the carnival. 

The balls, upon the other hand, are social events of 
great Importance in the city, and as spectacles they are 
peculiarly fine. Invitations to these balls are greatly 
coveted, and the visitor to the city who would attend 
them, must exert his ''pull" some time in advance. 
The invitations, by the way, are not sent by individ- 
uals, but by the separate organizations, and even those 
young ladies who are so fortunate as to have ''call-outs" 
— cards inclosed with their invitations, indicating that 
they are to be asked to dance, and may therefore have 
seats on the ground floor — are not supposed to know 
from what man these cards come. Ladies who have not 
received call-outs, and gentlemen who are not members 
of the societies, are packed into the boxes and seats above 
the parquet floor, and do not go upon the dancing floor 
until very late in the evening. Throughout each ball 
the members of the society giving the ball continue to 
wear their costumes and their masks, so that ladies, 
called from their seats to dance, often find themselves 
treading a measure with some gallant who speaks 
in a strange assumed voice, striving to maintain the 

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ANTOINE'S AND MARDI GRAS 

mystery of his identity. The ladies, upon the other 
hand, are not in costume and are not masked; about 
them, there is no more mystery than women always 
have about them. After each dance the masker pro- 
duces a present for his partner — usually a pretty bit 
of jewelry. Etiquette not only allows, but insists, that 
a woman accept any gift offered to her at a carnival 
ball, and it is said that by this means many a young 
gentleman has succeeded in bestowing upon the lady of 
his heart a piece of jewelry the value of which would 
make acceptance of the gift impossible under other than 
carnival conditions. 

After the balls many of the younger couples go to the 
Louisiane and Antoine's, to continue the dance, and as 
my room at Antoine's was directly over one of the danc- 
ing rooms of the establishment, I might make a shrewd 
guess as to how long they stayed up, after my compan- 
ion and I retired. 

Let it not be supposed that we retired early. I re- 
member well the look of the pale blue dawn of Ash 
Wednesday morning, and no less do I remember a con- 
versation wnth a gentleman I met at the Louisiane, just 
before the dawn broke. I never saw him before and I 
have never seen him since; nor do I know his name, or 
where he came from. I only know that he was an 
agreeable, friendly person who did not wish to go to 
bed. 

When I said that I was going home he protested. 

"Don't do that!" he urged. "There 's a nice French 

^73 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

restaurant in this town. I can't think of the name of 
it. Let 's go there." 

"Well, how can we go if you don't know what place 
it is?" I asked, intending to be discouraging. 

The young man looked dazed at this. Then his face 
brightened suddenly. 

"Oh, yes!" he cried. "I remember the name now! 
It 's the Louisiane ! Come on ! Let 's get our coats an' 
go there!" 

"But," I said, "this is the Louisiane right here." 

The thought seemed to stagger him, for he swayed 
ever so slightly. 

"All right," he said, regarding me with great solem- 
nity. Let 's go there!" 

I have wondered since if this same young man may 
not have been the one who, returning to the St. Charles 
Hotel in the early hours of that sad Ash Wednesday 
morning, was asked by the clerk, who gave him his key, 
whether he wished to leave a call. 

"What day's this?" he inquired. 

"Wednesday," said the clerk. 

"All ri'," replied the other, moving toward the eleva- 
tor. "Call me Saturday." 



674 



CHAPTER LX 
FINALE 

Yonder the long horizon lies, and there by night and day 
The old ships draw to home again, the young ships sail away ; 
And come I may, but go I must, and if men ask you why, 
You may put the blame on the stars and the sun and the white road and 
the sky ! 

— Gerald Goulu. 

IT is good to look about the world; but always there 
comes a tmie when the restless creature, man, hav- 
ing- yielded to the call of the seas and the stars and 
the sky, and gone a-journeying, begins to think of home 
again. Even were home a less satisfactory, a less happy 
place than it is, he would be bound to think of it after 
so long a journey as that upon which my companion and 
I had spent so many months. For, just as it is neces- 
sary for a locomotive to go every so often for an over- 
hauling, so it is necessary for the traveler to return to 
headquarters. The fastenings of his wardrobe trunk 
are getting loose, and the side of it has been stove in; 
his heels are running downi in back, his watch needs 
regulating, his umbrella-handle is coming loose, he is 
running out of notebooks and pencils and has broken a 
blade of his knife in trying to open a bottle with it 
(because he left his corkscrew in a hotel somewhere 

675 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

along the way). His fountain pen has sprung a leak 
and spoiled a waistcoat, his razors are dull, his strop 
is nicked, and he has run out of the kind of cigarettes 
and cigars he likes. One lens of his spectacles has 
gotten scratched, his mail has ceased to reach him, his 
light suits are spotted, baggy and worn, and his winter 
suits are becoming too heavy for comfort as the spring 
advances. His neckties are getting stringy, he has 
hangnails and a cough; he never could fix his own hang- 
nails, and he cannot cure his cough because the bottle 
of glycerine and wild cherry provided for just such an 
emergency by the loved ones at home, got broken on the 
trip from Jacksonville to Montgomery, and went drib- 
bling down through the trunk, ruining his reference 
books, three of his best shirts, and the only decent pair 
of russet shoes he had left. The other shoes have been 
ruined in various ways ; one pair was spoiled in a possum 
hunt at Clinton, North Carolina — and it was worth it, 
and worth the overcoat that was ruined at the same 
time; two pairs of black shoes have been caked up with 
layers and layers of sticky blacking, and one pair of 
russets was ruined by a well intentioned negro lad in 
Memphis, who thought they would look better painted 
red. His traveler's checks are running low and he is 
continually afraid that, amid his constantly increasing 
piles of notes and papers, he will lose the three books in 
each of which remains a few feet of "yellow scrip" — the 
mileage of the South — which will take him on his return 
journey as far as Washington. 

6y6 



FINALE 

Nor is that all. The determining- factor in his de- 
cision to go home lies in the havoc wrought by a long 
succession of hotel laundries — laundries which starch 
the bosoms of soft silk shirts, w^hich mark the owner's 
name in ink upon the hems of sheer linen handkerchiefs 
which already have embroidered monograms, which rip 
holes in those handkerchiefs and then fold them so that 
the holes are concealed until, some night, he whips one 
confidently from the pocket of his dress suit, and reveals 
it looking like a tattered battle-flag; laundries which 
leave long trails of iron rust on shirt-bosoms, which rip 
out seams, tear off buttons, squeeze out new standing 
collars to a saw-tooth edge, iron little pieces of red and 
brown string into collars, cuffs, and especially into the 
bosoms of dress shirts, and "finish" dress shirts and 
collars, not only in the sense of ending their days of use- 
fulness as fast as possible, but also by making them shine 
like the interiors of glazed porcelain bathtubs. But the 
greatest cruelty of the hotel laundry is to socks. It is 
not that they do more damage to socks, than to other 
garments, but that the laundry devil has been able to 
think of a greater variety of means for the destruction 
of socks than for the destruction of any other kind of 
garment. He begins by fastening to each sock a cloth- 
covered tin tag, attached by means of prongs. On this 
tag he puts certain marks which will mean nothing to 
the next laundry. The next laundry therefore attaches 
other tin tags, either ripping off the old ones (leaving 
holes w^here the prongs went through) or else letting 

677 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

them remain in place, so that, after a while, the whole 
top of the sock is covered with tin, making it an extraor- 
dinarily uncomfortable thing to wear, and a strange 
thing to look at. There is still another way in which 
the laundry devil tortures the sock-ow^ner. He can find 
ways to shrink any sock that is not made of solid heavy 
silk; and of course he can rip silk socks all to pieces. 
He will take silk-and-wool socks of normal length, and 
in one washing will so reduce them that you can hardly 
get your foot into them, and that the upper margins 
of them come only about an inch above your shoe-tops. 
People who have no business to do so, are thus enabled, 
when you are seated, to see the tops of your socks and to 
amuse themselves by counting the tin tags with which 
they are adorned. Also, the socks, being so short, be- 
come better pullers than the garters, so that instead of 
the garters holding the socks up, the socks pull the 
garters down. This usually occurs as you are walking 
up the aisle in church, or in the middle of a dance, and 
of course your garter manages to come unclasped, into 
the bargain, and goes trailing after you, like a convict's 
ball and chain. 

For a time you can stand this sort of thing, but pres- 
ently you begin to pine for the delicate washtub artistry 
of Amanda, at home ; for vestments which, when sent to 
the wash, do not come back riddled with holes, or smell- 
ing as though they had been washed in carbolic acid, or 
in the tub with a large fish. 

So, presently, you fold up your rags like the Arabs, 

678 



FINALE 

fasten your battered baggage shut as best you can, put 
it on a taxi, and head for the railway station. No train 
ever looks so handsome as the home-bound train you find 
there. No engineer ever looks so sturdy and capable, 
leaning from the window of his cab, as the one who is to 
take you home. 

Up through the South you fly, past many places you 
have seen before, past towns where you have friends 
whom you would like to see again — only not now ! Now 
nothing will do but home ! Out of the region of mag- 
nolias, palmettoes and live-oaks you pass into the region 
of pines, and out of the region of pines into that of 
maples and elms. At last you come to Washing- 
ton. . . . Only a few hours longer! How satisfyingly 
the train slips along ! You are not conscious of curves, 
or even of turning wheels beneath you. Your progress 
is like the swift glide of a flying sled. Baltimore, Wil- 
mington, Philadelphia, Trenton. Nothing to do but 
look from the car windows and rejoice. Not that you 
love the South less, but that you love home more. 

'T wonder if we will ever go on such a trip as this 
again?" you say to your companion. 

'T don't believe so," he replies. 

"It does n't seem now as though we should," you re- 
turn. "But do you remember? — we talked the same 
way when we were coming home before. What will it 
be two years hence ?" 

"True," he says. "And of course there 's Conan 
Doyle. He always thinks he 's never going to do it any 

679 



AMERICAN ADVENTURES 

more. But in a year or so Sherlock Holmes pops out 
again, drawn by Freddy Steele, all over the cover of 
'Collier's.' Not that your stuff is as good as Doyle's, 
but that the general case is somewhat parallel." 

"Doyle has killed Holmes," you put in. 

"Yes," he agrees, "and several times you 've almost 
killed me." 

Then as the train speeds scornfully through Newark, 
without stopping, he catches sight of a vast concrete 
building — a warehouse of some kind, apparently. 

"Look !" he cries. "Is n't it wonderful ?" 

"That building?" 

"Not the building itself. The thought that we don't 
have to get off here and go through it. Think what it 
would be like if we were on our travels ! There would 
be a lot of citizens in frock coats. Probably the mayor 
would be there, too. They would drive us to that build- 
ing, and take us in, and then they would cry if we re- 
fused to go to the fourteenth floor, where they keep the 
dried prunes." 

The train slips across the Jersey meadows and darts 
into the tunnel. 

"Now," he remarks hopefully, "we are really going 
to get home — if this tunnel does n't drop in on us." 

And when the train has emerged from the tunnel, and 
you have emerged from the train, he says: "Now 
there 's no doubt that we are going to get home — unless 
we are smashed up in a taxi, on the way." 

And when the taxi stops at your front door, and you 

680 



FINALE 

bid him farewell before he continues on his way to his 
own front door, he says: "Now you're going to get 
home for sure — unless the elevator drops." 

And when the elevator has not dropped, but has trans- 
ported you in safety to the door of your apartment, and 
you have searched out the old key, and have unlocked the 
door, and entered, and found happiness within, then you 
wonder to yourself as I once heard a little boy wonder, 
\vhen he had gone out of his own yard, and had found a 
number of large cans of paint, and had upset them on 
himself : 

"1 have a very happy home," he said, reflectively. ''I 
wonder why I don't seem to stay around it more ?" 



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